NEW DELHI, Aug 16: The police is claimed to have found concrete evidence against the YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra, who was arrested in Hisar in Haryana on May 16, of spying for Pakistan.
The police have filed a 2,500-page charge-sheet against her after three months of investigation levelling charges of espionage. Jyoti Malhotra, aka Jyoti Rani ran a travel account on YouTube called ‘Travel With Jo’, was arrested days after Operation Sindoor, India’s response to Pakistan on the brutal Pahalgam terror attack.
In the voluminous charge-sheet, the Hisar Police has said Jyoti Malhotra was in touch with Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish in the Pakistan High Commission and had gone to the neighbouring country at least twice. After the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor, Rahim was declared persona non grata and asked to leave India within 24 hours for committing espionage and leaking sensitive information on the movements of the Indian Army.
The police also said Malhotra had been spying for a long time. Sources said the chargesheet mentions her connections with Rahim and states she was also in touch with ISI agents Shakir, Hasan Ali and Nasir Dhillon. The chargesheet states Malhotra went to Pakistan on April 17 last year and returned to India on May 15. Just 25 days later, on June 10, she went to China and stayed in the country till July and going to Nepal after that.
“During the investigation, we have found concrete evidence that the YouTuber was spying for Pakistan,” sources said. “Earlier, when Malhotra went to Pakistan via Kartarpur Corridor, she met the chief minister of Pakistan Punjab and former PM Nawaz Sharif’s daughter, Maryam Nawaz Sharif, and interviewed her,” the source added.
A Haryana officer had earlier said the 33-year-old was allegedly in touch with an officer of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi during the four-day “Operation Sindoor” between India and Pakistan after the Pahalgam terror attack. However, she then was not privy to any information related to military operations.
(Manas Dasgupta)