Shocking revelations have exposed the frail security set-up in the South Block, housing the defence ministry from where an Indian Army deployment plan was leaked to Pakistan’s ISI in February last year.

Aaj Tak has learnt that details of a meeting between then defence minister A.K. Antony and then Army chief General Bikram Singh on troop movement in Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir borders reached the Pakistan Army, which accordingly countered the Indian plan.

The meeting between Antony and Bikram Singh took place on February 15, 2014, at 11am, lasting an hour.

The mole leaked details of a meeting between then defence minister A.K. Antony and then Army chief General Bikram Singh

After the meeting, the Army chief briefed then director general military operation (DGMO) Lieutenant General Vinod Bhatia about the redeployment plan.

Alarm bells

It was noticed that within a few hours, the Pakistan Army had begun redeploying its troops to counter the Indian plan.

Alarm bells started ringing in the Indian Army about the shocking “leak”. The Army chief immediately informed the defence minister, who then briefed then prime minister Manmohan Singh.

A meeting of the Army top brass was later held with Manmohan Singh, who visited the DGMO war room. The Army managed to identify the “mole”, who was a senior officer who had leaked the operational details to ISI. He was court-martialled.

As a follow-up step, the security of the entire South Block was beefed up with the installation of CCTV cameras.

Then DGMO lt. Gen. (retd.) Vinod Bhatia said: “The leak did happen… there is always an insider hand”.

But Antony chose not to give details.

“I do not comment…I don’t want to say anything now”.

Former Army chief General Bikram Singh also preferred not to talk about the incident.

“I retired a year ago, check with the Army headquarters,” he said.

Asked if the minutes between the then defence minister and the Army chief in February 2014 were leaked, the then DGMO Bhatia said: “No security system is foolproof. A leak did happen, how it happened is a different matter, but I can assure you whenever this kind of leak happens, we do re-check our security system and make it foolproof. Whatever happened that time, shouldn’t have happened. We will ensure this doesn’t happen again.”