NEW DELHI: An Indian Air Force (IAF) officer has been arrested in Delhi on charges of espionage and passing on classified information to Pakistani intelligence, NDTV said on Friday.

It quoted investigators as saying that Group Captain Arun Marwaha, 51, leaked information and documents to two Pakistani agents who chatted with him on social media pretending to be women.

The officer, posted at the IAF headquarters in Delhi, is a para-jumping instructor and was in charge of training elite Garud commandos.

He has been charged under the Official Secrets Act and faces up to 14 years in jail.

He was due to retire next year.

Sources told NDTV that after the officer befriended the alleged ISI agents on Facebook — they had fake profiles as women — a few months ago and they started chatting regularly on WhatsApp.

They allegedly even exchanged intimate messages. After gaining his trust, the agents asked the officer for classified documents.

The officer shared them regularly on WhatsApp in return for obscene photos, according to sources.

The information that he shared was reportedly about new agencies in the field of cyber warfare, space and special operations, NDTV said.

It said a senior air force officer discovered the breach a few weeks ago and set up an internal investigation. When Marwaha’s role was revealed, IAF informed the Delhi Police.

After questioning him for 10 days, the counterintelligence wing of the air force turned the case over to police.

The officer was arrested on Thursday as he was walking into the IAF headquarters with his mobile phone, which is not allowed in the building.

He has been sent to five days’ police custody by a court.

Investigators from IAF’s counterintelligence wing are examining whether officer Marwaha was part of a larger espionage ring run from Pakistan, sources told NDTV.

There was no evidence that money had been exchanged for the information provided by Mr Marwaha.

In 2016 a serving Indian naval officer, Kulbhushan Jadhav, was arrested in Balochistan.

He was not only involved in spying but also in terrorist activities.

In April 2017, a Pakistan military court senten-ced him to death for espionage.

Relations between the two countries are extremely tense, not just because of handing down of a death sentence to Jadhav but also due to the serious human rights excesses being committed in India-held Kashmir by Indian security personnel.

Published in Dawn, February 10th, 2018