Vlogger Jyoti Rani Malhotra arrested for ‘spying’ was on radar; 2 more held in Punjab

Jyoti Rani Malhotra, the 33-year-old travel vlogger from Haryana who was arrested on Friday for allegedly spying for Pakistani intelligence agencies, was on the radar of Indian intelligence agencies for a while, investigators have said.

Hisar Superintendent of Police Shashank Kumar Sawan said that her travels were being monitored, and she was arrested following inputs from central agencies. She is currently on a five-day police remand.

Malhotra, who has a YouTube channel called Travel with Jo with over 3,77,000 subscribers and an Instagram account with over 1,32,000 followers, was taken into custody after she was allegedly found sharing “sensitive information” with an official of the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi, the police said.

“She visited Pakistan multiple times and also went to China once. We are analysing her financial transactions and travel details. She was in touch with PIOs (Pakistan Intelligence Operatives). She did not have direct access to military or defence information, though Hisar is a strategic location,” the SP said.

Sawn said one of her Pakistan visits was “sponsored”. “She met some high-profile persons during the visit. Why and what information was shared; all these things are being probed.”

Police also said she possibly “fell into a trap for views and likes” and “her travel details show more expenses than her known sources of income”.

“In the greed of followers and likes, they (influencers) fall into such traps. They don’t know the national and international ramifications,” said the Hisar SP.

“We are trying to seize her laptop and mobile. The forensic analysis will clear many things, like what she shared,” he said. “We are probing who helped her and how she came in contact with PIOs and the Pakistan embassy. A team of cyber experts is analysing her social media accounts.”

“Modern warfare is not fought only on the borders. This is also a warfare when they recruit influencers and try to push their narrative,” said the SP.

Rani was arrested from the New Aggarwal Extension area in Hisar district and booked under Sections 3 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act and Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (acts that endanger the sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India). She is also being questioned by intelligence agencies.

According to police, she allegedly disclosed during preliminary interrogation that she had “gone to the Pakistan High Commission for getting a visitor visa in 2023”. It was here that she allegedly came in contact with a Pakistan High Commission official in New Delhi named Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish. The two stayed in touch, police said.

According to police, Danish was declared persona non grata on May 13 by the Indian government after he was accused of spying. He was also asked to leave India immediately.

Jyoti’s father, Harish Malhotra, told reporters in Hisar that she was working for a company in Delhi before the Covid lockdown at a monthly salary of Rs 20,000. “After the lockdown, she returned to Hisar and began shooting videos,” he said.

Punjab crackdown continues

In Punjab, too, police on Monday arrested two men for allegedly leaking sensitive military information to Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), DGP Gaurav Yadav. This takes the number of such arrests in the state to six.

According to the DGP, police received intelligence inputs on May 15, indicating that the accused, Sukhpreet Singh and Karanbir Singh, were allegedly sharing classified details related to Operation Sindoor, including troop movement and key strategic locations in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir, with the ISI.

“Acting swiftly, the police have arrested both suspects. Forensic examination of their mobile phones confirms the intelligence inputs. The police team has recovered three mobile phones and eight live cartridges (.30 bore) from their possession,” said Yadav.

The DGP said preliminary findings suggest the accused were allegedly in direct contact with ISI handlers and transmitted information concerning the Indian armed forces.

Yadav told The Indian Express that Punjab Police had been on an alert following close coordination with central intelligence agencies, as a result of which several persons allegedly passing on sensitive information to Pakistani handlers have been arrested.

Police suspect they were also part of a network cultivated by the Pakistan High Commission staffer, Danish, which began to unravel after two arrests were made by police in Malerkotla earlier this month.

According to the Malerkotla SSP Gagan Ajit Singh, police were monitoring Guzala (31), who visited the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi on February 27. There, she met Danish, who was posted as an official there at the time.

“Although Guzala has never been to Pakistan, she allegedly became a source of Danish and started providing him information about the Army’s activities… In exchange, Danish sent money to her through online transactions,” the SSP said.

Guzala was arrested on May 8 after human and technical surveillance provided leads regarding her alleged links with Danish. Police also arrested Yameen Mohd, who allegedly transferred Rs 10,000 to Guzala on Danish’s instructions.

A resident of Malerkotla, he facilitates passport and visa applications and has been to Pakistan twice, in 2018 and 2022, police say.

Close on the heels of these two arrests in Malerkotla, the state police arrested two persons — from Bathinda military station and Shahpur Kandi in Pathankot — for allegedly passing on classified information to ISI handlers.

On May 12, the Bathinda police arrested Rakib, a civilian tailor working in the Army’s engineer regiment.

A resident of Haridwar in Uttarakhand, Rakib revealed during questioning that he learnt to stitch Army uniforms from his brother, who worked at the military station in Beas in Punjab. He worked as a tailor at the military station in Patiala for about one year before proceeding to Roorkie, where he worked in a military unit for one year as a tailor.

The same day, May 12, police arrested Neeraj Kumar of Shahpur Kandi for allegedly helping ISI handlers acquire an Indian SIM card, which was found active in Pakistan. “He was working as a salesman at a kirana store. Though the Indian SIM was deactivated in Pakistan, the WhatsApp account on it was transferred to another number used to make phone calls in India,” a police officer said.