Madhuri Gupta was ‘faithful reporter’, but no documents transferred

NEW DELHI - Sustained interrogation of Madhuri Gupta, the junior Indian diplomatic official arrested for spying for Pakistan during her posting in Islamabad, has revealed that while she passed on reports of the high commission’s activities, there was no serious security compromise and no documents were traded, knowledgeable sources said.

Gupta, 53, who was arrested last week after she was called to Delhi on the pretext of some consultation at the external affairs ministry, has been under sustained questioning by security experts at various levels.

A thorough study of her mails revealed that she was a “faithful reporter” of the events and schedules at the Indian High Commission, giving daily and weekly reports of the engagements of the high commissioner and other staff and other schedules which she diligently kept track of.

But so far there is no evidence to suggest that Gupta, who is in Delhi Police custody, was able to pass on any documents of any sensitivity to her contacts of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for whom she played the mole, the sources told IANS.

“We are pretty certain that no serious damage to India’s security interests have been caused (by her transgressions),” a senior security official told IANS, speaking with full knowledge and authority.

“To the best of our knowledge, she has not passed on a single document to her handlers,” the official said. “Most of what she said were pretty routine stuff.”

The official said certain sections of the media, particularly TV, were having a free run in their speculation of what Gupta was up to and how much of India’s security may have been compromised by her actions, but said given the sensitive nature of the issue little can be done to counter what were essentially “blatant falsehoods and half-truths”.

He said the electronic media was only “feeding on itself” and was trying to make things as dramatic and salacious as possible in their familiar game to garner TRPs.

Gupta, a member of the secondary cadre known as Indian Foreign Service-B, was employed as a Urdu translator in the Indian High Commission.

She had earlier worked with the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), a foreign policy think tank, before she was posted at the Indian high commission in Islamabad. Other sources said she had before her posting shown great keenness to go to Pakistan citing her fluency in Urdu.

In parliament, Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur said Gupta did not have access to highly classified material but investigations were continuing and she was cooperating with her questioners.

“I rise to inform this august house that as a result of our counter intelligence effort, we had reason to believe that an official in the high commission of India in Islamabad had been passing information to the Pakistan intelligence agencies,” the minister said in a statement in the Lok Sabha.

“The position occupied by the official did not involve access to highly classified material. The official is cooperating with us in our enquiries. At this stage, for national security reasons, it is not possible to divulge more detail about the information that may have been compromised or to comment on this case as our investigations are continuing,” she added.