NEW DELHI: Making a dramatic claim in the corporate espionage case, arrested journalist Santanu Saikia has said that it's a Rs 10,000 crore scam. Saikia made the dramatic admission while going out of the Delhi Police crime branch office.

"Quote me, I was doing a cover up," Saikia said. "It's a rupees 10,000 crore scam," he said.

This comes after home minister Rajnath Singh ealier said in the day that no guilty will be spared and law will come hard on those involved.

Earlier, former newspaper reporter Saikia, detained by the police for interrogation over the leak of government documents had denied any links to the gang that stole papers from the petroleum ministry. He is, however, being extensively quizzed about certain documents found in his possession and his call records, police said.

Police have maintained that they had strong prima facie evidence against him which indicated his connivance with certain elements involved in the nexus. Saikia, his family said, had earlier been accused by the CBI of similar charges. "He won a case against CBI in 2009 over accusations that he had access to sensitive material," he said.

His family said police had put his house under surveillance since Tuesday. "Around 2.30am on Tuesday, a police officer hung around his office in Shapur Jat area in south Delhi. The guard said the cop was enquiring about the people who enter the premises. On Wednesday morning, crime branch officials came home to meet him and then searched the documents that he used for his reports. Eventually, they took him along with them to his office for further search," a family friend said.