New Delhi, December 30: Indian Navy has banned the use of social media for all the naval personnel for security reasons. According to a tweet by ANI, the stringent step has been taken by the force soon after seven naval personnel were caught leaking sensitive information to enemy intelligence agencies over social media. The Indian Navy has also banned smartphones at naval bases, dockyards and on-board warships. It added saying that the bans on messaging apps, networking and blogging, content sharing, hosting, e-commerce sites is under promulgation.

Reports inform that the Navy has issued orders to ban the use of social media site Facebook. The order was issued on December 27. This banning order comes after 8 persons, including seven Navy personnel and a Hawala operator from Mumbai were arrested on December 20 from Vishakhapatnam. In its statement, the Andhra Pradesh police said the state intelligence department launched an operation – code-named Operation Dolphin’s Nose -- to uncover the espionage racket.

Here's the tweet:

According to a report by Hindustan Times, Andhra Pradesh intelligence officers and and the Navy, claimed to have busted an espionage racket linked to Pakistan and arrested eight persons. Reports inform that they were produced before a special court dealing with National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases in Vijayawada and were remanded to judicial custody until January 3.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 30, 2019 09:40 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).