The government is taking all measures to prevent military personnel falling prey to foreign intelligence agencies, Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Saturday.
His comments come in the backdrop of a recent incident involving an Air Force personnel who became a victim of honey trap over the social media.
“I do not think that such things [espionage] are at high level. Few things came to light but they were at lower level and we have taken all precautions [to prevent them],” Mr. Parrikar told the media after inaugurating an Army recruitment rally Jaipur.He noted that things like honey traps could be avoided by being alert. “We take care of it at the time of recruitment and training. There are also clear guidelines and code of conduct [for personnel] to deal with social networking sites,” he said.
Last month IAF official Ranjith KK was dismissed from service after it came to light that he was passing classified information to adversaries. According to the police, he fell prey to a honey trap by a suspected operative with the screen name, Damini McNought, who posed as a journalist on Facebook.
The Army has recently made all recruitments online. Commenting on that Mr. Parrikar said they feared that the number of people who turn up might drop but on the contrary “the number of candidates has gone up instead.”
