The Delhi Police on Saturday said that the freelance journalist, who was caught in the national capital of spying, was also providing sensitive information about India’s border strategy and army deployment to Chinese intelligence.
Police further claimed to have busted a major spying operation amid soaring tensions between the two countries.
The police told that a Chinese woman, Qing Shi, and a Nepalese man, Sher Singh alias Raj Bohra, have been booked along with Sharma under the Official Secrets Act.
“Freelance journalist Rajeev Sharma arrested under Official Secrets Act for passing sensitive information to Chinese intelligence. A Chinese woman and her Nepalese associate also arrested for paying him large amounts of money routed through shell companies,” the Delhi Police said.
“Journalist Rajeev Sharma was involved in passing sensitive defence and strategic information to Chinese intelligence officers from 2016 to 2018. He used to meet them at several locations in different countries,” Sanjeev Kumar Yadav, DCP, Special Cell Delhi Police told.
“His 2 associates-a Chinese woman and Nepalese man, have a company in Mahipalpur, from where they exported medicines to China. Money sent from China was given to agents here. As per probe, transactions of Rs 40-45 lakhs have taken place in last 1 year,” the officer told.
“Rajeev Sharma has almost 40 years of experience as a journalist. In additional to his experience as a journalist in several news firms in India, he has written articles for Chinese media agency Global Times as a freelance journalist,” he added.
“Huge numbers of mobile phones, laptops and other incriminating and sensitive material have been recovered,” the police said.
Sharma is a journalist accredited with the Press Information Bureau (PIB).
Yesterday, senior police officer Sanjeev Kumar Yadav had said. “He was found to be in possession of some classified defence-related documents. The investigation is in progress and further details will be shared in due course.”