Gupta did not have access to highly classified material: minister

Indian diplomat Madhuri Gupta, arrested on charges of spying for Pakistani intelligence agencies, didn't have access to highly classified material but it was too early to divulge more details, Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur said on Thursday.

Indian diplomat Madhuri Gupta, arrested on charges of spying for Pakistani intelligence agencies, didn't have access to highly classified material but it was too early to divulge more details, Minister of State for External Affairs Preneet Kaur said on Thursday.

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"I rise to inform this august house that as a result of our counter intelligence effort, we had reason to believe that an official in the high commission of India in Islamabad had been passing information to the Pakistan Intelligence agencies," the minister said in a statement in the Lok Sabha.

"The position occupied by the official did not involve access to highly classified material. The official is cooperating with us in our enquiries. At this stage, for national security reasons, it is not possible to divulge more detail about the information that may have been compromised or to comment on this case as our investigations are continuing," she added.

Gupta, 53, a member of the secondary cadre known as Indian Foreign Service-B, was employed as a Urdu translator in the Indian High Commission. According to sources, she had been under observation and called back to India on the pretext of helping with the preparations of the SAARC summit.

She was reportedly held four days ago from her residence in Delhi.