A 64-year-old retired Indian Air Force officer has been arrested in Assam for allegedly sharing sensitive information related to the defence sector with “unknown persons” suspected to be linked to Pakistani intelligence agencies, police said on Saturday.

A resident of Patiachuburi in Sonitpur district’s Tezpur, Kulendra Sarma, was picked up by the police on Friday night.

He was produced in a local court on Saturday afternoon, which remanded him to five days in police custody.

The accused was a junior warrant officer in the IAF. His last posting was in the IAF station in Tezpur, a key strategic operational hub of the air force in the Northeast. He retired from the IAF in 2002 and then joined Tezpur University’s electronics department and retired from there, the police said.

Sarma, who was under surveillance for some time before being picked up, has been booked under multiple sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

“We had information from our sources that Sarma, aged 64, shared sensitive defence-related information with unknown persons suspected to be linked to Pakistan Intelligence. He had exchanged sensitive information through social media platforms, including WhatsApp,” a police official told The Telegraph.

Police said they have seized Sarma’s laptop and mobile phone.

“We will be sending the laptop and mobile phone for forensic examination. We are probing all angles,” the official said.

The arrest comes in wake of the arrest of four persons from neighbouring Arunachal Pradesh since November for allegedly spying for Pakistan. The four were arrested from Papum Pare, Changlang and West Siang districts.

The arrested quartet hail from Jammu & Kashmir. The frontier state — bordering China, Myanmar and Bhutan — has deployment has a heavy presence of defence
personnel.