Ministries asked to stop leakage of classified info to media

NEW DELHI: Various ministries, including Home and Defence, have been asked to take necessary steps to prevent leakage of classified information to the media and fix responsibility in case the leakage takes place.

This comes after National Security Adviser Ajit Doval asked for taking action against those responsible where leakage of classified information undermines national security.

Accordingly, union ministries, including Home, Defence and Telecom, have been asked to crackdown of middlemen roaming in these ministries as public relation officers of big corporate houses or representatives of media publications which are either never printed or published for mere record sake.

According to the sources in know, some of the secret notes of Intelligence Bureau and Defence Ministry were often leaked from Department of Telecom here to these alleged middlemen of corporate houses who start leaking documents purely because of commercial interests.

Anti-terror squads of various police forces have also been advised to plug leakage of classified information shared with them by central intelligence agencies.

This comes after some officials of the Anti-Terrorism Squad of a western state was seen sharing information with mediapersons.

After warning, the officers have been asked to refrain from doing the same or otherwise face action, the sources said.

Doval, who was the first to flag this issue, had expressed wonder how a classified briefing to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about Navy found its way to a TV news channel.

The NSA shot off a letter to Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth saying that "it has been observed that in the last few years, it has become a regular practice, particularly in the media, to violate secrecy laws with impunity.

"Firm action needs to be taken in such cases that undermine the national security of the country."

The Cabinet Secretariat forwarded the same to the Union Home Secretary asking them to take necessary action.