The government put up a brave face on Friday, downplaying the Scorpene data leak as reported in The Australian, an Australian daily with defence minister Manohar Parrikar saying that although “pockets of concern” are there, the leak is “not big worry”.
“We are going by assumption of the worst case scenario. I think there is not big worry because we will be able to put things in right perspective,” he said.
To buttress his point, the defence minister said the data put out doesn’t include the weapons systems.
However, Cameron Stewart, the Australian journalist who broke the leak story, contested the minister’s statement with a tweet: “India’s defence minister is wrong to say leaked Scorpene docs do not include weapons info. will release (self-censored) weapons doc Monday (sic).”
He added that his newspaper “has not and will not to place on web any document that would harm India’s national security”.
On Tuesday, the Indian security establishment was rocked by one of the biggest defence scandals when The Australian released 22,484 pages of sensitive data on the Scorpene submarines being built for India.
India has set up a high-level committee comprising defence ministry and Navy officials to look into the matter. Sources said that the Intelligence Bureau is also looking into the matter.
