YouTuber arrested in Haryana for 'sharing' Indian military information with Pakistan

The arrested woman was identified as Jyoti Malhotra aka Jyoti Rani.

She runs a YouTube page named 'Travel With Jo'.

According to reports, she has been arrested with five others in connection with the charges.

Officials told NDTV that the 33-year-old, who describes herself on 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 twice.

Pakistan official asked to leave

Last week, Danish was declared persona non grata and New Delhi asked him to leave India within 24 hours for committing espionage and leaking sensitive information regarding the movements of the Indian Army.

Danish was directed to leave the country in the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, India's calibrated military response to the Pahalgam terror attack by Pakistan. 

The Indian Armed Forces had launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 and targeted nine terror hubs in Pakistan and PoK in response to the recent terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam, popularly known as 'Mini Switzerland', that left 26 people, mostly non-Muslim tourists, dead on April 22.

Jyoti Malhotra has reportedly confessed to the investigators during interrogation that she had gone to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi in 2023 to get a visa to visit the country when she met Rahim and began talking to him.

She said she travelled across the border twice after that and met Rahim's acquaintance Ali Ahwan.

YouTuber's Pakistan visit

She said Ahwan arranged for her stay and travel in Pakistan.

"In Pakistan, Ali Ahwan arranged a meeting with Pakistani security and intelligence officials and I met Shakir and Rana Shahbaz. I took Shakir's mobile number and saved it in my phone under the name of 'Jat Randhawa' to avoid suspicion. Then I came back to India and remained in constant touch with all the above people through platforms like WhatsApp, Snapchat and Telegram and started exchanging anti-national information. I also met Rahim several times," Officials quoted Malhotra as having told the police, reported NDTV.

In March, she shared several images and videos of her latest trip to Pakistan on Instagram.

Investigators told Hindustan Times she also entered into an intimate relationship with a Pakistani Intelligence Operative (PIO) and even travelled to Bali, Indonesia, with him.