As the Scorpene data leak report broke out shaking the Indian defence establishment, French Ambassador Alexandre Ziegler said in Bengaluru that French authorities were trying to assess the extent, nature and sensitivity of information that may have been leaked.
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The 22,400 leaked pages, which the daily said it had seen, detail the combat capability of the Scorpene- class DCNS submarine designed for the Indian Navy, variants of which are used by Malaysia and Chile.
Considered to be the ultimate stealth weapon, Indian Navy officials said the six submarines, once inducted, would form the core of the Navy’s submarine arm for the next two decades. “The documents that have been posted on the website by an Australian news agency have been examined and do not pose any security compromise as the vital parameters have been blacked out”, said a statement released by the Indian Navy.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said it was important to note the submarine DCNS was building for India was a completely different model to the one it will build for Australia and the leaked information was a few years out of date.
Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has sought a report from the Indian Navy chief on the leak of thousands of pages of secret data on the combat capability of the Scorpene-class submarines being built in India in a $3.5 billion project.
Sensitive data on submarines designed for India’s navy have leaked from a leading French shipbuilder with military customers around the world.
“This serious matter is thoroughly investigated by the proper French national authorities for defense security”, said DCNS spokesperson Marion Bonnet.
Six Scorpene submarines are being built in collaboration with French naval contractor DCNS at a cost of Dollars 3.5 billion.
It though that data has been passed through firms in Southeast Asia before finally being mailed to a company in Australia, the newspaper said.
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Brazil also due to deploy the vessels from 2018. But Australian newspaper has published this because the same company is giving services to the Australian Government also. Australia has recently awarded a multi billion dollar contract for 12 conventional submarines to DCNS, beating Japanese and German competitors. “It’s part of the tools in economic war”, she said. The report says the information was suspected to have been taken in 2011 by a French former DCNS sub-contractor.
