India probes possible data leak about Scorpene submarines

The Indian Navy said Wednesday it was investigating a suspected leak of sensitive documents pertaining to French Scorpene submarines being built in India.

"A case of suspected leak of documents related to Scorpene submarines has been reported by a foreign media house," it said in a statement, referring to an Australian media report about a massive leak of more than 22,000 classified pages that has hit the French shipbuilder DCNS.

The Indian Navy said that it was analyzing the leak and affirmed that the source of the leak was from overseas, not India.

The leak was first reported by Australian newspaper The Australian and contained over 22,000 pages revealing the combat capabilities of the six submarines that DCNS has designed for the Indian Navy.

India signed a 3.5-billion-U.S.-dollar deal in 2005 with DCNS to build six Scorpene submarines at a state-run shipyard in Mumbai.

Indian Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar has sought a report from the Indian Navy on the leak, while a DCNS spokeswoman described the leak as "a serious matter" and requested French authorities to formally investigate it.

"As a serious matter pertaining to the Indian Scorpene program, French national authorities for defense security will formally investigate and determine the exact nature of the leaked documents," the DCNS spokeswoman said in a statement. Endi