Ex-envoy gets 3 yrs in jail for spying for ISI

New Delhi: Former diplomat Madhuri Gupta, who had served at the Indian high commission in Islamabad, was on Saturday sentenced to three years in jail by a Delhi court which convicted her for passing on sensitive information to Pakistan’s ISI.

Additional sessions judge Sidharth Sharma gave her the maximum sentence for the offences of spying and wrongful communication of information protected under the law,  observing that an educated woman like her did not deserve any leniency.

Gupta, who was the second secretary (press & information) at the high commission, was held guilty on Friday under various provisions of the Official Secrets (OS) Act.

She has been granted bail by the court to allow to appeal against the conviction and the sentence.

While convicting her, the court had said that the emails “passed on by the accused were categorically sensitive information which could have been useful to the enemy country... and its secrecy was of utmost importance”.

She was suspected by Indian intelligence agencies of spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence since 2008.

According to the prosecution, the ministry of external affairs had received information that Gupta had been maintaining unauthorised contacts with Pakistani intelligence officials and was passing on sensitive official information personally as well as through electronic means from her computer at her office and residence in Islamabad.

Ms Gupta was convicted under Sections 3 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act which attract a maximum sentence of three years and fine or both.

She was arrested on April 22, 2010 by the special cell of the Delhi police for allegedly passing on sensitive information to Pakistani officials and remaining in touch with two ISI officials, Mubshar Raza Rana and Jamshed.