Oil espionage case: Former journalist Santanu Saikia, Prayas Jain arrested

After arresting five people in connection to the oil espionage scam, the Delhi crime branch today arrested former journalist Santanu Saikia and Prayas Jain in relation to the case.

Santanu Saikia runs an energy portal called Indian Petro and Prayas Jain is an energy consultant at a Melbourne based company.

A senior police official said,"We have arrested Prayas Jain and Shantanu Saikia in this connection. Both of them are energy consultants who received stolen documents."

Both Santanu and Prayas will be produced before the court by noon today.

So far, seven people have been held for allegedly leaking oil ministry documents to business houses.

According to police sources, more arrests are likely to take place soon.

Sources have revealed that an Essar official has been questioned by the crime branch. However, the Essar company officials were not available for any comments.

The crime branch also questioned one company official of Reliance ADAG. But, the Reliance ADAG official has not been detained as no indiscriminate papers were found.

Yesterday, police had detained five people including two Oil Ministry officials, a Reliance Industries(RIL) staffer and two other middlemen for allegedly leaking important oil ministry documents to companies.

Raids were yesterday conducted at several establishments including a prominent building in Connaught Place which houses offices of a leading private petroleum firm believed to be RIL.

In a case reminiscent of the Spy scandal in mid 80s, some journalists who claimed to be independent energy consultants, and employees of certain petro companies were also said to have been detained for questioning in the development that has set off sensation in political and corporate circles.

Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi had said that action was taken on a tip off that two persons along with their associates were involved in "procuring, obtaining and stealing the official documents by trespassing into the offices of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas at Shastri Bhawan on February 17."

"A trap was laid and three persons came in an Indigo car near Shastri Bhawan. Two persons alighted and went inside while the third remained sitting in the car. After around two hours, when the two persons entered the car, all three persons were apprehended," he said.

They were identified as Lalta Prasad (36), Rakesh Kumar (30) and Raj Kumar Chaubey (39). Official documents were recovered from them.

Reliance Industries said it has been brought to the company's notice that one personnel has been detained by law-enforcement authorities.

(With inputs from agencies)