Madhuri Gupta says she is being framed (Second Lead)

NEW DELHI - Madhuri Gupta, a junior Indian diplomat arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), told a court here Saturday that she was being framed, police sources said.

Gupta was sent to 14 days judicial custody by Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja. The police were told to present Gupta before the court on May 15.

According to a police official, Gupta, 53, said she was not a senior officer and could not have passed on sensitive information to her contacts in Pakistan where she was posted in the Indian High Commission.

But she said she had revealed the identities of Indian undercover agents in Pakistan.

Her counsel Jagmohan Dahiya said police wanted to extend her custody for two more days, which the court rejected. Earlier she was in police custody for five days.

According to court sources, the police wanted to extend her remand as they claimed she was changing her statements time and again in order to mislead them.

She has been booked under the Official Secrets Act.

Gupta, a second secretary at the Indian mission in Islamabad, was arrested here April 27 on charges of passing on information to the Pakistanis.

According to officials, she came under suspicion months ago and was called to Delhi on the pretext of helping to prepare for the SAARC summit that ended in Bhutan this week.