“Reacting with alacrity to the development, defence minister Manohar Parrikar, who learnt about the leak at midnight, ordered Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lamba to go into the ‘entire issue”.
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India had signed a deal for six Scorpene-class submarines with the French firm in 2005 as part of its Project 75.
“The Indian Navy has taken up the matter with Director General of Armament of the French Government expressing concern over this incident and has requested the French Government to investigate this incident with urgency and share their findings with the Indian side”, according to an August 25 Indian Navy statement. Scorpene submarines are all set to add hugely to Indian Navy’s stealth capabilities and will serve the force over the next few decades.
DCNS initially suggested the leak might be at the Indian end, but the data leaked also relates to the French firm’s plans to sell frigates to Chile and an amphibious ship to Russian Federation, the report said.
Earlier today, a report in Australian media revealed that sensitive information related to India’s Scorpene submarines has been leaked, with French shipbuilder DCNS, which designed the submarine, facing a leak of documents spreading over 22,000 pages.
Separately, India on Thursday said that it sees no immediate security risk from the leak to an Australian newspaper of secret documents detailing the capability of a French-designed Scorpene submarine being built for its navy.
The leaked documents cover the Scorpene-class model and do not contain any details of the vessel now being designed for the Australian fleet.
The submarines are being built by French company DCNS and The Australian said the leak happened in France in 2011.
“The submarine we are building or will be building with the French is called the Barracuda, quite a completely different submarine to the Scorpene they are building for India”, he said.
Interestingly, the leak would also be carefully scrutinised by Pakistan, which has bought three submarines from DCNS, the Agosta 90B class.
The documents include thousands of pages on the submarine sensors and thousands more on its communication and navigation systems as well as almost 500 pages on the torpedo launch system alone.
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The breadth of detail creates a major strategic problem for the countries, said an Australian political source with decades of experience in the global arms industry.
