YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra has been booked under serious laws, including the Official Secrets Act and relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Hisar, May 22— A court in Hisar, Haryana, on Thursday extended the police remand of YouTuber and social media influencer Jyoti Malhotra by four more days. The police had earlier taken her into custody for five days after she was arrested on suspicion of spying.
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A police spokesperson said that Jyoti Malhotra, 33, was presented before the court on Thursday after her initial five-day police remand came to an end. She has now been sent back to police custody for another four days for further investigation.
Malhotra, who is originally from Hisar, ran a travel YouTube channel named “Travel with JO.” She was arrested last week from the New Aggarsain Extension area in Hisar.
She is among 12 people who have been arrested from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh over the past two weeks for suspected involvement in espionage activities. Authorities believe that a Pakistan-linked spy network is secretly operating in northern India.
She has been booked under serious laws, including the Official Secrets Act and relevant sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
According to Hisar police, as of now, “no evidence had emerged to indicate Malhotra had access to any military- or defence-related information.”
However, police said she was “definitely in contact with some people, knowing that they were Pakistani intelligence operatives.”
Police sources revealed that she was in regular contact since November 2023 with Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish, who worked at the Pakistani High Commission in India. The Indian government had expelled Danish on May 13 for allegedly being involved in espionage.
Police have sent three mobile phones and a laptop belonging to Jyoti Malhotra for forensic testing. Besides this, her four bank accounts are also being examined for suspicious financial transactions.
Officials from the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Intelligence Bureau (IB), and military intelligence have all questioned Malhotra during the investigation.
Investigators found that Malhotra had travelled to Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and several other countries in the past.
According to the police, “Pakistani intelligence operatives were developing Malhotra as an asset.”
They also said that she was “allegedly in touch with Danish during the four-day military conflict between India and Pakistan that followed the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.”
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