Police grill YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra over Jagannath, Mahakaleshwar temple visits

Police are also trying to verify claims that Jyoti Malhotra flew a drone over the Jagannath temple in Puri.

Police have questioned Haryana-based YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra regarding her visits to the Shree Jagannath temple in Puri and the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain amid allegations of her being a spy for Pakistani authorities.

Travel blogger Jyoti Malhotra's visits to the Jagannath temple and Mahakaleshwar temple are being investigated.(Travel with Jo/YouTube)

Puri Police are in the process of verifying allegations concerning Jyoti Malhotra, which claim that she had flown a drone over the Shree Jagannath temple during her visit to Puri in 2024, flouting a ban on UAVs around the sacred space. 

A team of five Madhya Pradesh police personnel went to Haryana, where Malhotra had been kept in custody after her arrest, to question her after getting information that she had visited the Mahakaleshwar temple dedicated to Lord Shiva in Ujjain in April last year. 

Ujjain Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) Nitesh Bhargava told PTI that so far nothing incriminating had been discovered during the YouTuber's questioning.

"The place is very sensitive and sees a huge number of footfalls daily, including devotees from overseas. So it was important to grill her. We took suo motu (on its own motion) action to send a team to Hisar (where she is being grilled by different agencies)," he said.

 Bhargava added, “We have not got any suspicious things (in connection to her Ujjain visit) as of now. It (questioning) was just our precautionary exercise. What was the harm in it?”

Meanwhile, the Odisha government announced on Friday that were considering installing an anti-drone system to bolster security at the temple and prevent the entry of unauthorised or “malicious” UAVs.

“We are mulling over the idea of installing an anti-drone system for added security of the Puri temple, as done by defence establishments,” the state's law minister Prithviraj Harichandan told PTI.

Jyoti Malhotra arrested for espionage

The 33-year-old travel blogger was arrested on May 16 for allegedly sharing sensitive information with Pakistani operatives. She was booked under Sections 3 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923, and Section 152 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Act.

During the remand period, she was questioned by National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials.

Malhotra had allegedly been in touch with Danish, a Pakistani high commission official expelled from India on May 13, from November 2023 to March 2025. She was introduced to Danish at the Pakistan High Commission by Singh when she went to apply for a visa to Pakistan.

Several other YouTubers have also been questioned regarding connections to Pakistan, including Odisha-based travel blogger Priyanka Senapati, who had escorted Malhotra around Puri during the latter's visit to Odisha.