In a sensational development shocking the external affairs ministry, Madhuri Gupta, an Indian female employee of the Indian high commission in Islamabad has been arrested here as an alleged mole of the Pakistan government. The 53-year-old woman, who’s believed to have been arrested in Delhi, has been spying for Pakistan from within the Indian High Commission in Islamabad where she was posted for over two years as a second secretary in the press and information section.

Her arrest came even as the government has already ordered an inquiry in Delhi and Islamabad against all staff posted in the high commission in the past three years for any possible spy ring operating from within for Pakistan. Their bank accounts are being checked to ascertain any unusual transactions, sources said. A highly-placed official said Madhuri Gupta had a technical status as a diplomat, but she was not from the Indian Foreign Service cadre. He protested at the electronic media describing her as the first ever Indian diplomat arrested for spying as if she was from the IFS cadre. She was a B grade officer in the Urdu translation section of the Foreign Office and posted in Islamabad as an Urdu interpreter, he said. She is with the ministry for almost three decades and her responsibilities in Islamabad included liaison with other embassies.

Delhi police on Tuesday confirmed the arrest of Gupta on Sunday under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) on the charge of passing strategic secrets to Pakistan. It secured her police remand for four days from a city court on Monday and will be produced before the court again on Thursday for further extension of remand, Police sources said. She has been booked under sections of 1A and 2A of the Official Secrets Act that carries a maximum punishment of 10 years. 
A joint team of the Research and Analysis (RAW), Intelligence Bureau and sleuths of special cell of Delhi Police is interrogating her to trace any accomplices she had roped in to work for Pakistan during her posting in Islamabad. The exercise is to bust any spy ring that Pakistan could have created within the Indian High Commission.
After dilly-dallying for whole day as all who matter in the External Affairs Ministry are away in Bhutan for the SAARC summit, including the Foreign Secretary, Ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash confirmed her arrest on the charge of passing information to the Pakistani intelligence agencies. He refused to say any further except that the matter is under investigation and the arrested "official is cooperating with our inquiry."

Sources said she was under surveillance of RAW for the past six months in Islamabad and the External Affairs Ministry was asked to call her to Delhi last week on the guise that she is required for the SAARC summit in Bhutan as an Urdu interpreter.
Though police claims she was arrested from her East Delhi residence on Sunday, sources said she was nabbed at the airport itself as soon as she arrived in Delhi on Friday and accosted by the intelligence officials who who detained and grilled her for two days before the special cell of Delhi Police was called in to book her.
She was taken to her residence and it was thoroughly searched before formally putting her arrest Sunday night. Police seized seven incriminating documents and two mobile phones, one with Indian sim card and another that of Pakistan. Her phone calls were, however, monitored for long and hence not much may come out of seizure of the mobile phones.
Sources said she is being interrogated about the money she has been depositing in a Pakistan bank and then transferring it to India as she is alleged to getting this as a regular pay-off from the ISI, the intelligence agency of Pakistan Army.

RAW started trailing her and listening to her phone calls in Islamabad after one of its officials in the High Commission reported her undue interest in certain matters that did not concern her responsibilities, sources said. The official who became suspicious about her queries may also face music for allegedly providing her certain sensitive information that she may have passed on to her Pakistani contacts. Sources said his explanation has been sought and told to disclose what all information he had shared with the lady.
As it always happens in all such cases under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), the intelligence sources claimed Madhuri has confessed to spying for Pakistan, though inquiries show that police did not disclose any such confession made by her on Monday when she was produced before a court here. The same sources even claimed that she compromised India because she was dissatisfied with her service conditions and she needed money. The sources claimed a large chunk of money she got from ISI was still lying in a Pakistan bank.
"She is in the information wing, which is isolated from the political wing and not in the most vital departments and could not have been privy to the most sensitive of documents. However it is a penetration. We earlier had a penetration by East Europeans, but this is a first from Pakistan," an agency quoted former MEA Secretary K C Singh reacting to the news.