Microsoft job for secret info

Plum portfolios at the IT major were promised by US diplomat.

NEW DELHI: All it took was an offer of plum portfolios in US MNCs like Microsoft for two senior staffers of National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) to leak top secret documents to elusive American “diplomat” Rosanna Minchew, a Delhi police probe has revealed.

Security agencies are still taking stock of the extent to which classified files have been accessed by the two accused NSCS employees.

Classified documents seized from the accused persons include Nuclear Doctrine draft report, the foreign policy on the Thai KAR Canal and futuristic NSCS plans for data sharing network among security agencies, police said.

Retired NSCS employee Mukesh Saini at the time of his arrest in June 2006 was nurturing a “promising” career with US-based software giant, Microsoft - courtesy Minchew. 

His co-accused, Shib Shanker Paul, a senior computer analyst with the NSCS, even disclosed that he worked for Minchew as she had “assured him of a good job in any of the US IT multinationals,” police said.

Both Saini and Paul have been accused of criminal conspiracy and offences under the Official Secrets Act in a chargesheet filed by the Delhi Police Special Cell before Delhi Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Seema Maini recently.

Minchew was introduced to Saini, then a naval commander posted at NSCS, in August 2005 by US diplomat Howard Madnick as the new “political officer” in charge of the Indo-US Cyber Security Forum.The duo allegedly met several times during training sessions and seminars at his NSCS office in Patel Bhawan. “On one such occasion, he (Saini) told Minchew that he is going to retire soon and needs a suitable job. She referred his name to Microsoft and Saini gave her all information relating to NSCS,” police said.