Army officer honey-trapped in B'desh, inquiry ordered

An Army Lieutenant Colonel was embroiled in an alleged honeytrap and then blackmailed by Inter-Services Intelligence which reportedly asked him to spy for Pakistan during his posting in Bangladesh.

The Army has ordered a Court of Inquiry (CoI) against the officer whose name has been witheld by the Army Headquarters in New Delhi.

The Infantry officer was doing his Staff College course in the Bangladesh's Military Academy in Dhaka. Army sources said the officer was reportedly honey-trapped by a woman whom he had met at a party in Dhaka two months ago and was then later approached by agents of Pakistan's intelligence agency.

Armed with alleged tapes of the officer and the woman together, the officer was asked by the ISI agents to spy for Pakistan, the sources said. The officer reported the incident to the Indian High Commission in Dhaka and he was immediately recalled to India, they said.

The CoI against the officer is being headed by a senior officer. As per Army Rules, establishing any such intimate relations with other than permissible people is prohibited and is a punishable offence.

This is the second time in the recent past that a senior officer of the Indian Armed Forces has been "honey-trapped."

Early this year, the Navy dismissed Commodore Sukhjinder Singh, who was posted in Russia to overlook the retrofitting of aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov, for allegedly having intimate relations with a local woman.

However, it could not be proved that his links with the woman had had any impact on the aircraft carrier project, for which the Russians had several times hiked the cost of repair and overhaul.