Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 17: Six persons including a woman travel blogger Jyoti Malhotra have been arrested in Punjab and Haryana on charges of spying, wrongful communication of information for the benefit of a foreign power and endangering the sovereignty, integrity and unity of the country for allegedly passing on secret information to Pakistan intelligence operatives.
Jyoti Malhotra aka Jyoti Rani, who ran a travel account on YouTube called ‘Travel With Jo’, has been arrested from Hisar in Haryana for sharing Indian military information with Pakistan, police said on Saturday. Among others arrested included a 25-year-old student from Punjab and a 24-year-old security guard from Haryana.
Officials said the 33-year-old, who describes herself in her YouTube as a ‘nomadic Leo girl wanderer’, ‘Haryanvi+Punjabi’ and ‘purane khyalo ki modern ladki’ (a modern girl with a traditional outlook), had come in contact with an official, Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish, in the Pakistan High Commission and had gone to the neighbouring country at least thrice.
Jyoti Rani, a resident of Agarsen Extension, was arrested following an input and “suspicious things” were found in her mobile phone and the laptop, said Kamaljeet, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Headquarters, Hisar. “She was continuously in contact with a Pakistani national. She has been arrested under the Official Secrets Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita,” said the officer, adding that the woman was taken on five days remand.
She was called for interrogation following inputs from the Punjab Police through a letter on May 7 and was later arrested. According to the FIR, the woman purportedly told the police during interrogation that she ran a YouTube channel, “Travel With JO”, and came in contact with Ehsan-Ur-Rahim alias Danish two years ago when she went to the Pakistan High Commission seeking a visa to the country. She stayed in contact with Rahim over phone and twice visited Pakistan, where she met his acquaintance Ali Ahwan, who arranged for her stay and travel in the country.
Ali allegedly introduced her to Pakistan Security and Intelligence officials, and there she met Shakir and Rana Shabaz. She took Shakir’s mobile number and stored it under the name “Jat Randhawa” to avoid suspicion. “She stayed in touch with all these Pakistani nationals over WhatsApp, Snapchat and Telegram and shared anti-national details with them. She also met Ehsan-Ur-Rahim several times. She was found in touch with Pakistan intelligence operatives,” reads the FIR.
Ehsan-Ur-Rahim was declared persona non grata by Indian External Affairs Ministry on May 13 and told to leave the country. On her YouTube channel with 3.77 lakh subscribers, Jyoti has also posted 487 videos on her channel, including many on her visit to Pakistan and Thailand. The case has been registered under Sections 3 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act and Section 152 of the BNS at Hisar Civil Lines Police Station on May 16.
In an upbeat YouTube shorts posted in March, Malhotra detailed her journey to Pakistan, stating she had gone to explore Hindu pilgrimage sites. “First, we clear Indian immigration, then we cross the Attari-Wagah border. When you cross the border, you feel very enthusiastic. It’s a memorable moment, you get goosebumps. When you cross into Pakistan, there is media coverage of travellers,” she says in Hindi.
“Then you exchange Indian rupees for Pakistani currency. I got 2.6 Pakistani rupees for each Indian rupee. I suffered a loss, I had thought it would be three,” she adds. Other videos posted this year show her exploring the streets of Lahore, doing a “Ramzan food tour” and visiting temples.
A security guard, Nauman Ilahi, was arrested in Haryana’s Panipat on Wednesday on charges of spying for Pakistan. The 24-year-old used to get money deposited in the account of his brother-in-law in exchange for information.
Devendra Singh Dhillon, a 25-year-old student, was arrested from Kaithal on May 12 for uploading photos of guns on social media. On Saturday, the Haryana Police said he admitted during questioning that he went to Pakistan through the Kartarpur corridor in November last year and was sharing sensitive information with officers of the ISI.
Kaithal Superintendent of Police Aastha Modi said the first-year Master’s student of political science at Patiala’s Khalsa College had also shared images of the Patiala military cantonment with Pakistanis officers. One arrest was made from Kaithal, one from Panipat, one from Nuh, and a female YouTuber – Jyoti Malhotra – was arrested from Hisar. She was presented in the court, which sent her to a 5-day police remand. The cops have seized her passport.
Her father, Harish Malhotra, said Jyoti had gone to Pakistan with all required permissions and a valid visa and claimed that she was being framed. “I spoke to Jyoti today. She told me, ‘Papa, I am fine and I am being falsely implicated’,” he said.
The two other people who were arrested were working as accomplices of other suspects. The police are conducting intensive interrogation with all of them to ascertain the facts. Another man hailing from Haryana’s Mastgarh Cheeka village was arrested for committing the same offence.
The 25-year-old individual was identified as Devendra Singh, a PG Diploma student. “Our staff at the cyber police station is conducting a thorough investigation into the devices found with him. Whatever truth may come out, the law will be followed accordingly,” an official said.
According to reports, Singh was a college student in Punjab. In November last year, he embarked on a pilgrimage to Nankana Sahib Gurdwara in Pakistan, where he allegedly came in contact with Pakistani intelligence operatives. Since his return to India, he was in touch with them, the officials said. Earlier, two men were arrested in Punjab for allegedly revealing sensitive information about Indian military installations to the ISI. The duo was identified as Palak Sher Masih and Suraj Masih.
Jyoti Malhotra’s arrest followed declaring an official of the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi persona non grata on charges of espionage last week amidst continuing tensions between the two countries following the Pahalgam terror attack. The decision concerning the official, who was not named by either side, was conveyed to Pakistan Charge d’Affaires Saad Warraich, who was issued a demarche, asking the staffer to leave India within 24 hours.
Sources said the expelled High Commission staffer was linked to two people arrested in Punjab for “espionage activities” by Punjab Police on the weekend for “leaking sensitive information regarding Indian Army movements” to Pakistan. The case is significant given the massive troop movements and cross-border military actions since May 7, including of the Indian Army and Air Force, as well as the build-up of troops along the border.
In a statement the police in Malerkotla had said the two accused had been giving the information to a “Pakistan-based handler” and receiving payments through online transactions in exchange. The police said the network of other local operatives connected to them was also being identified, and a First Information Report (FIR) was registered in the case.
