Quote:Only 'routine' info passed to teach IFS officers a lesson, says Gupta

TNN, Apr 29, 2010, 12.16am IST





NEW DELHI: Madhuri Gupta, the Indian diplomat accused of spying for Pakistan, has apparently told her interrogators that she passed on only "routine" information to her Pakistani handler as she was keen to teach IFS officers a lesson for treating her shabbily. <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



Government sources said it would have been difficult for an official of her rank to pass on “sensitive” information.



Investigators have identified 53-year-old Gupta's handler as Mudassar Rana, a Pakistani internal intelligence official, who is not from ISI. Gupta, however, admitted that she knew Rana as a Pakistani army captain with ISI links. She denied any physical relationship with her handler.



Gupta's questioning also threw up five more names with whom she was in touch. Gupta was introduced to 56-year-old Rana by one of her journalist friends in Pakistan. Well versed in Sufism and Urdu, Gupta was on study leave at JNU before her Islamabad posting where she did research in Urdu language.



Gupta's main task was to monitor and record daily reporting in the Urdu press. She used to prepare a daily report and send it to her superiors. These reports and other details of the Indian mission's activities were being passed on to Rana for the past two years, said a senior official.



Isnt what is being monitored also valuable information"



Gupta was also tasked with keeping tabs on Urdu media reports on the arrest of LeT operatives David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana, both accused in the 26/11 attacks of Mumbai.



Officials said Gupta used to meet her contact in Markaz Super Market, also called Jinnah Market, and IFFI Cafe in Islamabad. Sources said that a few months back, another official posted at the Islamabad mission was called back by the MEA after Gupta's role came under the scanner. This official, who is believed to be under the watch of intelligence officials, will soon be questioned by Delhi Police.



Sources also claimed that Gupta, a Grade-B officer, had been receiving large amounts of money from the ISI which she deposited in a Pakistani bank and then transferred to Indian banks. After Gupta's arrest, another senior Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) official has come under the scanner for allegedly passing information to her.



Interestingly, Gupta has accused RAW station chief R K Sharma of being a spy. This apparently has prevented authorities from giving Sharma a clean chit. Sources, however, said it was Sharma who had first brought to light Gupta's association with Rana and the possibility that she might have been giving information to him. Sharma first disclosed this to officials in the Indian mission about five months ago.



Sharma admitted that he initially became friendly with Gupta but later got suspicious as she started to insist on acquiring information on India's intelligence operations in Pakistan.



Could be hell hath no fury than a woman scorned?



While authorities are examining Gupta's email accounts and call details, government sources maintained that it would have been very difficult for her to hand over sensitive information to her handler. They denied that any sensitive information pertaining to India's operations in Afghanistan could have been passed on to the ISI operative.



"One possibility is that she told her handler all information which she gathered from documents which she was given to translate in Urdu. However, it was mostly related to appointments, travel schedule and public dealings of the high commission. We believe not much has been lost even though she did have some information which a person of her rank should not have had," said a highly placed government official. Gupta also denied that she made any attempt to bug offices in the high commission by planting transmitting devices.



So the GOI is supposed to believe her? Why would she implicate herself? Also did she pass on who was whoi Kabul to the TSP? She would know from her appointments and travel schedules?





Meanwhile, an Indian army officer is also said to be under the scanner for links with Gupta, but this is not confirmed. Gupta is said to have been in touch with the officer who belongs to Rajouri in J&K and also his relatives with whom she purportedly exchanged emails.



Gupta had worked as assistant director with ICWA at Sapru House. She had earlier served in the Indian mission in Baghdad, Serbia, Kuala Lumpur and Croatia, said an official.

Quote:The link to JNU which jellifies the mind and makes one see friends where only enemies abound!

Quote:New Delhi Madhuri Gupta, the IFS officer held for allegedly spying for Pakistan, is said to have told her interrogators that she passed on information to the Pakistani ISI “willingly and without any financial benefit” to “teach a lesson” to Ministry of External Affairs and its “arrogant” Indian Foreign Service officers

Quote:Prabhu Dayal, the Indian consul general in New York, has been accused of treating a former domestic help as a slave and making sexual advances, a charge rejected by Dayal as "complete nonsense". Santosh Bhardwaj, Dayal's former maid, has filed a forced labour-suit against him for making her work for long hours everyday at $300 a month, confiscating her passport and letting her sleep in a storage closet. She has also alleged him of making sexual advances.

"I filed the complaint because I want to be paid for all the labour I provided and for all the injustice I suffered - and I want my passport returned," Bhardwaj (45), the mother of four children, said.



"The Dayals did not treat me fairly," she said in a statement issued by the Legal Aid Society, which is representing her.

Quote:A senior official in the Indian Forest Service has been in the United States since July, awaiting a hearing in Pennsylvania's Pike County Court concerning an incident in a Westfall Township, Pa., hotel.



Surendra Prasad Mohapatra, 52, was charged with indecent assault and false imprisonment on July 24 while staying at the Hampton Inn, an Eastern Pike Regional Police report says.



According to the criminal complaint, Mohapatra called the front desk at 10:20 p.m. on July 23 to ask for help connecting his computer to the Internet.



An employee tried to give instructions over the phone but was quickly cut off when Mohapatra insisted, "You just come up here," the victim told police.



She went to his room.



He told her to sit at the desk. She did, and connected the computer to the Internet. Mohapatra asked her name and then asked if he could take a picture of her, according to a statement the victim made to police.



The victim agreed to the photo. Mohapatra took one of her smiling at the desk, and then he sat next to her and took a photo of them together.



The victim told police that Mohapatra put his hand on her breast and at first she thought it was an accident but then he tilted the camera toward her breast.



She stood up to leave and he asked if he could kiss her. She said no.



...........

Mohapatra is the regional chief conservator of forests at Sambalpur in Odisha, India, according to a report in the India Times. He was part of a group of 30 Indian officers visiting the U.S. for an executive training program, studying international and domestic environmental policy-making at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in New York. The group visited Grey Towers in Milford, Pa.



The Indian Consulate made arrangements for Mohapatra to stay in the U.S. while he fights the case in court, according to an Indian newspaper, the Pravasi Herald.



Mohapatra was originally held on $35,000 bail but the consulate helped arrange bail to have him released.



"Mohapatra is unlikely to get any diplomatic immunity, as he does not have a diplomatic passport but an official one," the Pravasi Herald reported.



Mohapatra is expected in Pike County Court later this month.