Hyd DRDL contract employee honey-trapped by ISI operative, held for sharing confidential info

Hyderabad: A contract employee of the Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL) was arrested on 17 June after falling prey to a honeytrap laid by a woman ISI operative based in Pakistan.

Dukka Mallikarjuna Reddy, an MBA graduate from Hyderabad and a quality assurance engineer, was booked for criminal breach of trust and the Official Secrets Act. He was arrested by a joint team of police and the special operation group for sharing confidential information that could have compromised national security.

The police said Mallikarjun was working with a Bengaluru-based company in 2018 when he was assigned to a DRDL project on which he worked till January 2020.

After the successful completion of the project, Mallikarjun reached out to the DRDL authorities and sought a job as a contract employee in the ANSP project. Since then, he continued to work at the same location at RCI Balapur, Hyderabad. He has mentioned in his Facebook profile that he works for the DRDL.

In March 2020, he received a friend request from Natasha Rao. He accepted the request and she introduced herself as an employee of a UK-based defence journal. She told Mallikarjun that she had earlier lived in Bengaluru and that her father was a retired Indian Air Force officer who had moved to the UK.

Further, she inquired about Mallikarjun's profession, location, and nature of work. During their conversation, he shared some confidential information with Natasha. The two stayed in touch till December 2021.