A MEETING between the Indian and Pakistani prime ministers at a regional summit in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan scheduled for today has been eclipsed by a spy scandal involving an Indian diplomat.
Officials in New Delhi said Madhuri Gupta (53) was arrested at the weekend on suspicion of passing secrets to Pakistani intelligence and charged under the official secrets act of an offence that carries a 10-year jail sentence.
“We have reason to believe that an official in the high commission of India in Islamabad had been passing information to the Pakistani intelligence agencies,” foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash said in a statement on the sidelines of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation conference in Bhutan.
“The official is co-operating with our investigations and inquiries,” he added.
Security sources said Ms Gupta, who had been in the high commission’s information section in Islamabad for nearly three years, came under suspicion last year for passing on information and documents to Pakistani intelligence.
She was summoned to Delhi last weekend and arrested shortly after her arrival.
The diplomat has allegedly confessed to being in touch with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence Directorate and is being questioned on who else from the Indian mission may be involved.
Security sources said Ms Gupta, reportedly recruited by Pakistani intelligence on earlier postings to Baghdad or Kuala Lumpur, is believed to have revealed India’s strategy on Afghanistan, an issue of crucial importance to Pakistan.
She has also reportedly compromised the identities of several undercover Indian intelligence operatives to her principal “handler”, who was also allegedly her lover.
Diplomatic sources said Ms Gupta had limited access to classified documents in her role in the information wing and hence could not have passed on overly sensitive material to the Pakistanis.
But they said it was a “penetration” of the embassy by the Pakistani intelligence establishment for the first time which made the incident “alarming”.