Jyoti Malhotra’s Arrest Evokes Memories of Madhuri Gupta Spy Case After 15 Years

The news of the arrest of YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra on charges of espionage for Pakistan has sent reverberations through the country's security establishment. However, this is not the first time such a treachery has rocked India. The case of Madhuri Gupta, a then-established Indian diplomat arrested in 2010 for leaking sensitive data to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was probably one of the most astonishing incidents of betraying national interests in the last decade.

While Jyoti Malhotra purportedly used digital media platforms to collect and report sensitive information, Gupta was a servant in the internal ranks of Indian diplomatic apparatus. Gupta was an experienced officer of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) and was Second Secretary (Press and Information) at the Indian High Commission in Islamabad when she was reported to have betrayed her country.

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The Spy Within

Madhuri Gupta's demise was shocking and unprecedented. A Jawaharlal Nehru University graduate, Gupta was a career diplomat after 27 years of service and was fluent in Urdu. To put it bluntly was chosen for Pakistan for such knowledge but she failed in her ability to restrain. Her work was mostly to monitor media in her area and report back to New Delhi. However, Gupta was leaking some of India's closely held secrets to India's nemesis.

In early 2010, Indian intelligence agencies became concerned. Intelligence Bureau Director Rajiv Mathur received a heads-up about a possible leak at the Islamabad mission. Investigators began an undercover operation - they fed Gupta false information to see if it came back to them - and it did.

What followed told a story of emotional manipulation and spying. Gupta had fallen in love with much younger Pakistani man by the name of Jamshed - or “Jim” - who was later identified to be an agent of the ISI. Investigators characterized Gupta as being the subject of a “honeytrap.” Her romantic entanglement was a pretext for the ISI to play and manipulate Gupta's emotional foibles to extract state secrets.

What She Leaked

The sum total of Gupta’s betrayal was staggering. She passed along classified information on India’s foreign policy, internal defence operations, the identities and passwords of intelligence officers, as well as information concerning the 26/11 Mumbai Attacks. She used emails created by the ISI handers - like lastrao@gmail.com and arao@gmail.com, and was on her Blackberry and laptops, the majority of which were collected by the investigators.

Once there was enough evidence against Gupta, she was summoned to New Delhi for a meeting under the pretext of SAARC summit prep. She was arrested on the 22nd of April, 2010, by the Delhi Police Special Cell and charged under the Official Secrets Act.

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The court convicted her of criminal conspiracy under sections 3 and 5 of the Act and section 120-B of the Indian Penal Code. While the information she disclosed did not relate specifically to Indian military hardware, the court still found it relevant since it could be "extremely useful to the enemy country."

Arrest, Trial, and Conviction

"She had a position of significant trust, and her actions harmed the image of the country," the court stated. It went on to deny her request for mercy on the grounds of how badly her actions had injured national security.

Gupta had spent 21 months in Tihar Jail before being granted bail. In 2018 she was formally convicted but the court allowed her to appeal the conviction. She passed away in 2021 at the age of 64.

A Cautionary Tale Rekindled

Now, with the arrest of Jyoti Malhotra, comparisons to Gupta are unavoidable. However, I need to clarify Malhotra's reported use of the digital sphere as an influencer/informant over Madhuri Gupta's deep entrenchment locally to her access. Her role gave her access to important government operations and personnel.

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