Ravind Sistala had a crucial job at the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) set up in the aftermath of the Kargil war to be a single technical intelligence facility to keep watch on Pakistan. NTRO was also supposed to issue warning signals to those manning India’s missile systems and nuclear warheads in real time.

According to media reports, in 2006, Sistala lost the laptop which reportedly had critical docuements related to India’s weapons programme. He compromised a Rs. 1,850 crore intelligence-gathering programme that had key linkages to India’s growing nuclear arsenal and missile systems. Unencrypted ‘Top Secret’ data pertaining to these was stored on Sistala’s Hewlett-Packard laptop which disappeared mysteriously while he was on his way to the Delhi airport. There has been no news about the missing laptop since then, though an in-house inquiry was said to have been conducted.