The Indian Navy has asked all its ranks to keep themselves away from social media and smartphones after the busting of mega espionage racket.

Phones are completely put on an "unwanted substance list" for personnel working onboard warships, at dockyards and naval bases.

The order comes after seven sailors were arrested in a joint operation by the Andhra Pradesh police with the help of central intelligence. The racket was linked to Pakistan.

A release from police said the Intelligence wing in concert with Central Intelligence agencies and Naval intelligence launched Operation Dolphin's Nose and unearthed the espionage racket.

The accused naval men including a hawala operator were sending sensitive details related to naval vessels and submarines to Pakistan.

While three sailors are from strategically important Eastern Naval Command of Visakhapattanam, three other are from Western Naval Command and one was posted at Karwar naval the base of Karnataka.

All these men had joined service post-2015. The three accused were arrested from ENC Visakhapattanam are Sunny Kumar (Alwar, RJ), SK Das (Gopalpur, Odisha) and S Kumar Sarma (UP).

Others accused Ashok Kumar (Jhunjhun, RJ), Ashok Kumar (Jodhpur, RJ), V Kumar (Alwar, RJ) and Somanath (Pune, MH) were arrested from Karwar Command of Karnataka while one Ashok Kumar Singh was posted at Submarine based at Mumbai.

SK Das was working around INS Sundhukarti, a Diesel Electric Submarine, while Sunny and S Kumar Sharma were working at INS Khanjar, a Khukri Class Corvette. INS Shivalik stealth multi-role warship, all based out of Visakhapatnam.