Indian diplomat arrested for spying for Pakistan

NEW DELHI - An Indian woman diplomat has been arrested here after confirmation was received of her passing on sensitive information to Pakistan.

Madhuri Gupta, a second secretary with the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, was arrested here on Sunday after being called back by the Ministry of External Affairs for consultations related to the XVIth SAARC Summit.

Gupta was produced before a court on Monday and remanded to police custody for four days.

A private television channel quoted sources in the ministry as saying that Gupta, 45, had been leaking sensitive and strategic Indian Government information to Pakistan for the past two years.

They said they had been monitoring the activities of Gupta, an Indian Foreign Service (IFS)-B grade officer, for the past year, and added that over the past six months, the surveillance had been raised to a higher level.

The channel said the issue was not so much about the arrest of the diplomat, as it was about Pakistan being successful in planting a mole in the Indian diplomatic mission in Islamabad.

Gupta, who was a specialist interpreter in Urdu, was posted in the media and information wing of the high commission

The Ministry of External Affairs has said that it will brief the press here in the evening.

As of now, Gupta is being interrogated by personnel of the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing (R and AW). (ANI)