New Delhi (TIP): A former journalist along with a corporate employee have been arrested in connection with the petroleum ministry document leakage case, police said on Feb 20, adding that some more people would be arrested soon.

Santanu Saikia, who runs a web portal and covered crime stories for several years, was arrested early Friday for his alleged role in providing secret documents of the petroleum ministry to corporate houses.

Prayas Jain, an energy consultant, was also arrested on Friday.

Delhi Police on Thursday had arrested two employees of the petroleum ministry and three others for stealing official documents and leaking them to corporate houses.

Rakesh Kumar, 30, Lalta Prasad, 36, both brothers and residents of Delhi, and Raj Kumar Chaubey, 39, a resident of Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh, were held red-handed with the photocopy of some secret documents at Shastri Bhawan on February 17 night.

On information provided by them, government employees -Asharam, 58, and Ishwar Singh, 56 – were also arrested. They were were part of multi-tasking staff (MTS) at Shastri Bhawan.

Police on Thursday said that Kumar and Prasad were former MTS employees, while Chaubey was their associate who never worked at Shastri Bhawan.

The theft of the secret documents had been taking place in the office of the ministry located in high-security Shastri Bhawan near the parliament house.

Previous Update (below) – Two officials of the Petroleum Ministry were arrested today

Two Petroleum Ministry employees are among five persons arrested for allegedly leaking

confidential government documents to private companies, Delhi Police said today.

 Sources said a clerical staff and a peon of the Petroleum Ministry were apprehended by the police.

They said provisions of Official Secrets Act may be slapped on them.

The sources said the two Petroleum Ministry employees used to provide confidential information to private companies in return for money.

Petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan told Times Nowthat the government will probe the matter as the leakage of information is a very serious issue. “We will provide assistance to Delhi police and law will take its course,” Pradhan was quoted as saying by Times Now.

“Earlier, it was common for papers to be leaked, now strict measures are  in place. Cameras  have been installed everywhere and we have increased our surveillance,” Pradhan added. He also said that the the current govrnment will not allow  the kind of leakages that the UPA Government had allowed.

BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha also reiterated that those involved the ‘murky affairs’ will have to face the consequences of law.

With inputs from Agencies