Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur told the Lok Sabha that diplomat Madhuri Gupta, who was posted in Indian mission in Islamabad and was arrested for spying for Pakistan, had no access to sensitive information. “The position occupied by the official did not involve access to highly classified material,” Kaur told the House in a suo motu statement.
She said that the government, as a result of its counter-insurgency efforts, had reason to believe that “an official” of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad had been passing information to the intelligence agencies of Pakistan.
Gupta, a second secretary in the press and information wing of the High Commission in Islamabad, was last week summoned to New Delhi by the Ministry of External Affairs.
The diplomat was detained and questioned by the sleuths of the Intelligence Bureau as soon as she landed in New Delhi. She was subsequently arrested and produced before a court, which sent her to police custody.
“The official is now cooperating with us in our inquiries. At this stage, for national security reasons, it is not possible to divulge more details about the information that may have been compromised or to comment on this case as investigations are continuing,” the minister told the House.
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