NEW DELHI, Aug 4: Indian military sources said on Thursday an investigation has been launched into alleged espionage by a soldier at a major air base near China, in which documents on troop deployments and high-level strategy were stolen.

The investigation was prompted after the arrest last month of a corporal who worked in an area of the base with access to computer data. He was found with 100 pages of computer printouts of strategic importance, said a senior army officer who declined to be named.

“It seems (the corporal) last year passed on copious data on missile locations, deployment of infantry battalions at China’s borders, weapons technology upgrades and classified minutes of commander conferences,” the officer said.

Some documents, he added, had been stolen and passed on to Pakistan. The army officer said the thefts likely happened in a two-month period last year.

“We are in the process of ascertaining what we have lost but from the surface it appears there has been a serious breach (of national security),” the officer said. A military intelligence official said the thefts were from a “war room” at the Tezpur base in northeastern India and were likely passed on to Pakistan and then China.

The heavily-fortified base acts as a shield against three Chinese airfields in Tibet. The suspect’s father, who is a retired air force sergeant, and five others were picked up on July 16 from the New Delhi suburb of Noida in connection with the case, the military intelligence official said.

The Indian military declined any official comment. The corporal is set to be brought to the Indian capital this week for further questioning. He belongs to the 21st Mountain Infantry Division which guards the country’s eastern borders with China. The case follows a break-in at the country’s naval war-room last week.

Two years ago, unidentified attackers broke into a fortified defence facility in New Delhi and walked away with an unknown number of computer hard disk drives containing years of work relating to defence research.—AFP