Jyoti Malhotra: NIA, IB & police grill Haryana YouTuber held for spying for Pakistan

The National Investigation Agency, Intelligence Bureau and military intelligence officials are questioning Haryana YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra, who was arrested recently on charges of spying for Pakistan, police said on Tuesday.

A probe into the YouTuber’s financial transactions and travel details is also underway, they said.

Hisar-based Jyoti (33), who ran the YouTube channel ‘Travel with JO’, was arrested from the New Aggarsain Extension on May 16, and booked under the relevant sections of the Official Secrets Act and the BNS, police said. Jyoti was among 12 people who were arrested from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh over the past two weeks on charges of espionage, with investigators pointing at an alleged Pakistan-linked spy network operating in north India.

A senior Haryana Police officer in Hisar said the central agencies and military intelligence officials are also probing her travel details, as she had reportedly visited Pakistan, China and some other countries.

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An attempt is being made to draw a complete chain of events to see which countries she visited and in what sequence, the officer said.

Earlier, police said her known sources of income did not justify her foreign travels, adding that her financial transactions were also under scanner.

A forensic analysis of Jyoti’s laptop is underway, police said, adding that they would also question those who were in touch with the YouTuber.

On Sunday, Hisar SP Shashank Kumar Sawan said that Pakistani intelligence operatives were developing Jyoti as an “asset”.

She was allegedly in touch with a Pakistani official posted in the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi during the four-day military conflict between India and Pakistan that followed the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, the SP said. Sawan said while Jyoti did not have direct access to any information related to the military operations, she was directly in touch with Pakistani intelligence operatives (PIOs).

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“This is modern warfare that is not just fought on the borders. We came across a new modus operandi wherein PIOs were trying to recruit some social media influencers,” the SP said.

Sawan also said Jyoti went to Kashmir before the Pahalgam attack and visited Pakistan before that, and police are trying to establish the “links” between these visits.

Jyoti, whose YouTube channel at present has 3.87 lakh subscribers, came in contact with Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish at the Pakistan High Commission in 2023, when she went there seeking a visa to visit the neighbouring country.

On May 13, India expelled Ehsan for allegedly indulging in espionage.

Police investigation has revealed that Guzala (31), whom Punjab Police arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan from Malerkotla district, came in contact with Ehsan in February.

She met him at the Pakistan High Commission while seeking a visa to visit the neighbouring country, police said.

Police arrested Guzala and Yameen Mohamad, both residents of Malerkotla, on May 11 for their alleged role in leaking sensitive information and photographs of Army cantonment areas and air bases to Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

The accused reportedly received payments through the online mode in exchange for sharing classified information, police said.

Meanwhile, the family of Sukhpreet Singh, who was arrested from Punjab’s Gurdaspur on Monday for allegedly leaking critical information concerning the Indian armed forces to Pakistan, claimed that he could not do such a thing.

(Except headline, this story has not been edited by Firstpost staff)