Indian diplomat charged with passing state secrets to Pakistan

Indian official Madhuri Gupta accused of espionage
Arrest comes ahead of this week's peace talks in Bhutan
Manmohan Singh
Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, is due to meet with his Pakistani counterpart at peace talks this week. Photograph: Anupam Nath/AP

An unusual spy scandal erupted today when the Indian government accused one of its diplomats of handing secrets to Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence agency. The Indian foreign office said Madhuri Gupta, a 53-year-old second secretary at its Islamabad high commission, had been charged with espionage.

Gupta, who had worked in the press and information section for three years, was arrested on Friday after being called back to New Delhi on the pretext of discussing a regional summit in Bhutan this week. She was charged in court yesterday .

"We have reasons to believe an official in the Indian high commission in Pakistan has been passing information to Pakistani intelligence officials," said Vishnu Prakash, a spokesman for India's ministry of external affairs. "The official is co-operating with our investigations and inquiries."

Press Trust of India news agency reported that the head of India's intelligence agency research and analysis wing in Islamabad was also under investigation.

Indian officials did not elaborate on the nature of the secrets allegedly stolen by the junior diplomat. But the revelation is a big embarrassment for Indian's diplomatic service on the eve of the Bhutan summit where peace talks between the nuclear-armed rivals are high on the agenda.

The arrest was not expected to derail a meeting between Pakistan's prime minister, Yusuf Raza Gilani, and his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh, due tomorrow or on Thursday. But it may dampen expectations of a resumption of peace talks, which collapsed after the 2008 Mumbai attacks in which more than 170 people were killed. India blames Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group with historical ties to the ISI, for the atrocity, accusing "state elements" of orchestrating the carnage.

The two countries, which have fought three wars, have a history of skulduggery and periodically engage in tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats, usually at times of political or military tension.

The Indian high commission in Islamabad is one of the most closely guarded, and watched, buildings in the capital. Visitors are intercepted and questioned by ISI officials loitering outside the gate. Inside, Indian officials move through code-locked doors.

But it is rare for a diplomat to be accused of spying and analysts were divided on the political significance. Some felt it was unlikely to damage relations because the accused is an Indian national; others saw it as an ominous sign for an early resumption of peace talks.

"The timing is everything," said Cyril Almeida, a columnist with Pakistan's Dawn newspaper. "The news was released on the eve of the meeting between the two prime ministers, thereby scuttling any chance of peace talks. It suggests India is not ready to move from the post-Mumbai status quo, and that they won't be anytime soon. They are stuck in a rut."

Pakistan's military has also upped the ante with India in recent weeks, conspicuously conducting its largest war games for decades in the desert along the border between the two countries.

Asked if the prime ministers would meet, Pakistan's foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, said: "Why not, one always lives in hope."

Singh and Gilani met briefly in Washington this month, but their last substantial engagement was in Cairo last July when they agreed to de-link terrorism and the broader peace process, triggering fierce right-wing criticism of Singh.

US officials are working behind the scenes to nudge the arch-rivals together. Some Obama administration officials believe peace in the region, including in Afghanistan, will only be possible once the 62-year-old Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India is resolved.

Afghanistan has become a proxy battlefield between the two countries. Pakistan accuses India of using its Afghan consulates to stoke a nationalist insurgency in the western province of Balochistan; India accuses Pakistan of sending suicide bombers to kill its diplomats in Kabul.