Latest news with #WithJo
Time of India
5 days ago
- Time of India
Oil Spill Alert After Ship Sinks Off Kerala Coast
News • 1 Week ago Travel vlogger Jyoti Malhotra, also known as Jyoti Rani, has been arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan. The 33-year-old Haryana-based influencer, who runs the popular YouTube channel Travel With Jo and has over 1.37 lakh Instagram followers, is accused of leaking sensitive Indian military information. She is one of six individuals booked under espionage charges. Jyoti had shared content from her Pakistan visit, including Lahore's Anarkali Bazaar, Katas Raj Temple, and local cuisine, often drawing cultural comparisons between India and Pakistan. Her videos and captions expressed admiration for the neighboring country, including one post titled "Ishq Lahore." According to reports, Jyoti came into contact with Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish, a Pakistan High Commission official, during her 2023 visit. She later developed close ties with him and was introduced to Pakistani intelligence operatives.
Time of India
5 days ago
- Time of India
Israelis run for shelter as Houthis fire back-to-back ballistic missiles
News • 1 Week ago Travel vlogger Jyoti Malhotra, also known as Jyoti Rani, has been arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan. The 33-year-old Haryana-based influencer, who runs the popular YouTube channel Travel With Jo and has over 1.37 lakh Instagram followers, is accused of leaking sensitive Indian military information. She is one of six individuals booked under espionage charges. Jyoti had shared content from her Pakistan visit, including Lahore's Anarkali Bazaar, Katas Raj Temple, and local cuisine, often drawing cultural comparisons between India and Pakistan. Her videos and captions expressed admiration for the neighboring country, including one post titled "Ishq Lahore." According to reports, Jyoti came into contact with Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish, a Pakistan High Commission official, during her 2023 visit. She later developed close ties with him and was introduced to Pakistani intelligence operatives.
Hindustan Times
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Hindustan Times
A tale of espionage, intrigue in a small town in Punjab
His name was saved as 'Happiness' in her phone. That hope unraveled when police came calling. Investigations by Punjab Police into the links between an expelled Pakistan high commission officer who allegedly ran a spy ring in India and a 32-year-old widow from Malerkotla, Punjab, have indicated that he used to develop personal relationships with visa applicants and then used them to gather information. Guzala was arrested on May 8 by Punjab Police on the basis of an intelligence input provided by a central agency, a police officer said on condition of anonymity. She uses only one name, according to the first information report registered after her arrest and the written statement she gave police that has been accessed by HT. On February 2, Guzala went to the Pakistan high commission in Delhi to get visas for herself, her aunt and two other relatives to visit family across the border. 'Next day my aunt went to the embassy to get an idea about our visas and told me that only my visa has been rejected from the group. We came back to Malerkotla,' Guzala said in her statement to police. Three weeks later, she got a Whatsapp message that changed her life. 'On February 27, I got a text on my Whatsapp from a person, who introduced himself as Danish, the visa officer at the Pakistan high commission, who had conducted my visa interview,' Guzala told the police. Eshan-Ur-Rahman, aka Danish, was declared persona non grata by India on May 13. More than two dozen people have since been arrested for allegedly passing on information to Pakistan, including Haryana YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra and Uttar Pradesh businessman Shazad Wahab. Many of them came into contact with Danish as part of the visa process at the high commission, according to statements by investigators. More arrests are expected as the investigation proceeds. Despite their differing circumstances, some common threads tie the disparate cases – a link to some Pakistani official, allegations of spying and quid-pro-quo payments, questions about proof of spying, and lingering doubts about how seemingly ordinary people would have ever had any access to the kind of sensitive information that could be valuable in espionage. 2 The most notable of these arrests is that of Hisar resident Jyoti Malhotra. The 33-year-old, the daughter of a furniture polisher, grew up in the New Agrasen Colony in Hisar town, in a middle-class household. After graduating high school, Jyoti began working as a receptionist at a local coaching centre in Hisar. During the pandemic, she turned to YouTube. Her travel vlogs on her channel – Travel With Jo – gained her nearly 400,000 followers on YouTube and 140,000 on Instagram before being taken down. On May 16, police registered a first information report against her at the Hisar Civil Lines Police Station under Sections 3 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923 — that address actions considered spying, including unlawfully approaching, inspecting, or being in the vicinity of a prohibited place; making sketches, plans, or models useful to an enemy — and Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita that deals with endangering the unity and integrity of India. The FIR said she met Danish when she went to the high commission for a visa in 2023. She subsequently went to Pakistan twice, featuring the country in her videos. During this time, she said she was helped by two of Danish's associates. 'One of them, Ali Ahsan, introduced me to Pakistani intelligence and security officials and there I met a man called Shakir. I saved his name as Jat Randhawa on my phone so that no one would get suspicious,' the FIR read, allegedly quoting Jyoti. Police allege she passed on 'anti-national information' and met Danish several times in Delhi at the high commission, before he was expelled. She remains in custody, but over the past week, the case appeared to veer away from terrorism and towards allegations that she was encouraged, and possibly paid, to portray a welcoming image of Pakistan. 'She did not have direct access to any information related to the military or defence operations that she could have shared, but she was in touch with Pakistani officials. She was in touch with other YouTube influencers,' Hisar superintendent of police (SP) Shashank Kumar Sawan said. Her father, Harish Malhotra, said his daughter started posting videos on social media after she was fired from a job in Delhi in 2019 and returned home. 'In Delhi, she was earning ₹20,000 per used to tell me that she was going to Delhi and never disclosed that she went to Pakistan. She never shared anything with me,' he said. A Hisar police spokesperson said that Jyoti told investigators that she was introduced to Danish by Harkirat Singh, a Kurukshetra-based employee of the Haryana Sikh Gurdwara management committee who used to ferry Sikh pilgrims across the land border at Attari. 'The police arrested Harkirat Singh on Sunday and released him later. His mobile phone was seized and sent to a laboratory. He is also working as a visa agent and the officials are probing his role,' the spokesperson added. There is no proof of wrongdoing yet. 3 After the first message on February 27, Guzala said her phone conversations with Danish became more frequent, and personal. The Punjab Police officer quoted above also said that Danish may have acted as 'more than a friend' to Guzala. She told police that Danish told her to use a Telegram account from another phone number to stay in touch and that she could come to the high commission whenever she needed a visa . 'Finally, I got my Pakistan visa sanctioned in April with the help of Danish,' Guzala's statement said. There was a catch. 'I later came to know that Danish is already married,' she told police. After this discovery, said a senior police officer involved in the investigation, Guzala started recording conversations with Danish on another phone. Guzala noticed Danish's messages getting automatically deleted from her chat. She then made video recordings of her conversations with Danish with her brother's mobile, her statement said. That phone too was seized by police. Police officers said Danish started using Guzala as an espionage asset and would ask her for key military information. They also said the Pakistani visa that was approved on April 23 after she met Danish at the Pakistani high commission was as a quid pro quo for sensitive information on installations. No details about Guzala's access to official secrets or sensitive information have been divulged by police so far. But investigators have traced some financial transactions initiated by Danish. The high commission official made two men transfer some funds into her PhonePe account, Guzala told police, adding that she moved the money to some other persons on Danish's instructions. In the course of their examination of Guzala's phone, police found Danish's number was saved as 'Happiness'. They also found that Guzala was not the lone contact Danish had in Malerkotla, the only Muslim-majority city in Punjab. 4 The former princely state of Malerkotla holds a special place in Punjab history. Founded in the 15th century, it was said to have been blessed by Guru Gobind Singh, which is why it escaped large-scale violence during Partition, even as neighbouring regions such as Patiala and Jind were scarred by clashes and death. Partition also established migratory links as troves of refugees criss-crossed the border and some members of the Muslim elite moved to Pakistan, continuing to cherish relationships that spanned the restive frontier. It was in this city that Guzala lived. And it was in this city that Yameen Mohammad ran a pesticide business. Earlier this month, police found a transfer of ₹10,000 into the widow's account from Mohammad's account and arrested him. His statement to police, also accessed by HT, on his links to Danish bears similarities to Guzala's tale. The 33-year-old man told police he visited Pakistan first in 2013 to see a relative at Gujranwala. Ten years later, while appearing for a visa interview for another trip to Pakistan, he met Danish at the high commission in Delhi, the statement said. 'Danish got friendly with me and asked about my profession. I told him that I deal in pesticides, he invited me to visit his house lawns and offered me help in getting Pakistani visas sanctioned for more Malerkotla men,' he told police. According to the statement, Danish often sought information about India, Malerkotla and places in Punjab. On May 8, Police booked Guzala and Mohammad under Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and sections 3, 4 and 5 of Official Secrets Act. No details have emerged so far on Mohammad's access to sensitive information. Last week, police in Uttar Pradesh said they have uncovered a similar nexus between Rampur resident Shahzad Wahab and Danish. The UP anti-terror squad said Shahzad visited Lahore in the past one year, and was allegedly smuggling cosmetics, clothes, spices, and other items across the border, at the behest of Danish. No proof is in the public domain about him having access to any sensitive information. Mohammad told police that he got three Pakistani visas sanctioned with Danish's help and in return the high commission official asked for ₹5,000 for each visa. ₹10,000 was sent to Guzala and the rest went to someone else, said an investigator, adding that police are verifying all other transactions made by Mohammad on the directions of Danish. Guzala was apparently aware of Mohammad. Her statement to police said that Danish told her Mohammad was working with him for many years. Now, all three are in jail. And so are many others.
