New set of leaked Scorpene documents out

New Delhi, Aug 25 (PTI) Australia’s ‘The Australian’newspaper today uploaded a fresh tranche of leaked documentsrelating to information about operating instructions ofunderwater warfare system of the six Scorpene submarines whichare being built in India by French firm DCNS. However, a top defence analyst allayed fears that it couldcompromise the security of the strategically important combatvessels. Like in the previous case, the newspaper has blackedout all details which it felt would compromise India’ssecurity interests. However, the new set of documents, with Indian Navyinsignia on it and marked "Restricted Scorpene India", givesdetails about the sonar system of the submarines which is usedto gather intelligence underwater. It talks about a wide range of technical specificationsof the sonars and at what degree and frequency it willfunction. The documents detail the "Operating Instruction Manual",which talks about how to select a target for weapon firing,weapon configuration selection, among others. Though the Navy has not yet officially reacted to therelease of new documents, sources maintained that it does notcompromise national security. They said the same information about a submarine was on"many naval defence websites". "On the face of it, these documents are basic operatingmanual. You buy any goods from the market, it will come withan operating manual," defence analyst Commodore Uday Bhaskar(Retd), Director of Society of Policy Studies told PTI. If the question is if tonight’s revelation has made oursubmarines vulnerable, "then the answer is no", he said. "It is more like basic operating instructions for theuser," he said. The paper said it has been told that the secret data wasremoved from DCNS by a former sub-contractor in 2011 and takento a private company in Southeast Asia before being passed onto a branch of that company in a second Southeast Asiannation. A disk containing the data filed was then posted inregular mail to a company in Australia. DCNS is focusing its investigation on former employeesand sub-contractors involved in the project. At this stage itis not thought that the leak came from India. PTI SAP SKSK