An army intelligence unit seized a pile of top-secret documents from two shops here on Monday morning. The sixth detachment of the army's Central Command Liaison Unit has arrested two shop-owners and handed them over to Mhow police.

The police have registered cases against the two shop-owners, Vipul Jain and Ajay Sanghi under Section 3 of the Official Secrets Act. Mhow has three training institutions - the Infantry School, Army War College and the Military College of Telecommunications Engineering.

Major Vikram Sinho, in charge of the intelligence unit, got a tip-off that large-scale photocopying was being done at Vipul and Ajay's shops in Chhota Bazaar and Sanghi Street, respectively. He launched simultaneous raids on the shops and recovered more than 1,000 pr and #233;cis (books containing training methodology and war tactics) of the Infantry School, three CDs and six floppy discs.

The investigators also recovered a computer from Vipul Jain, which contained some secret data. But the army authorities ensure that computers are sanitised - every scrap of information taken out from the hard discs - before sending them out for repairs, upgradation or auction.

Additional Superintendent of Police (rural) Satyendra Shukla told HT that the police are interrogating the two accused to find out if the books were sold to any outsider. He said some army officers had given this stuff to the shop-owner for making more copies and binding.

Shukla said the army authorities are trying to find out the names of the personnel involved. Infantry School PRO Lt Col P.K. Saxena admitted that the recovered documents were 'Restricted Documents'.