Travel YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra and others arrested for alleged spying for Pakistan
#News Bureau May 17,2025
A travel YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra and some others were arrested for leaking Indian Army’s intelligence information to Pakistan. The accused also include students and guards. Know the whole incident:
Haryana Police on Saturday said that Jyoti Malhotra alias Jyoti Rani, who used to make videos on YouTube under the name ‘Travel with Joe’, has been arrested from Hisar in Haryana. She is accused of allegedly sharing Indian military information with Pakistan. She is among the six people who have been arrested on these charges. These also include a 25-year-old student and a 24-year-old security guard. The arrests were made from Haryana as well as Punjab.
Officials said that 33-year-old Jyoti, who described herself as ‘Nomadic Leo Girl Wanderer’, ‘Haryanvi+Punjabi’ and ‘Purane Khayalon Ki Modern Ladki’ on her YouTube, came in contact with Ehsan-ur-Rahim alias Danish, an official of the Pakistan High Commission, and visited the neighboring country at least twice.
Following the tensions that escalated last week after the Pahalgam terror attack and India’s response codenamed ‘Operation Sindoor’, Rahim was declared ‘persona non grata’ on charges of spying and leaking sensitive information about Indian army movements and was asked to leave India within 24 hours.
During interrogation, Jyoti Malhotra told the police that she had gone to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi to obtain a Pakistan visa in 2023, where she met Rahim and started talking to him. She said she went to Pakistan twice after that and met Rahim’s acquaintance Ali Awan, who arranged for her stay and travel.
According to officials, Jyoti Malhotra told the police, “In Pakistan, Ali Awan organised a meeting with Pakistani security and intelligence officials and I met Shakeel and Rana Shahbaz. I took Shakeel’s mobile number and saved it in my phone with the name ‘Jat Randhawa’ so that no one would suspect. Then I came back to India and was in constant touch with all those people through platforms like WhatsApp, Snapchat and Telegram and started exchanging anti-national information. I also met Rahim several times.”
He said Jyoti Malhotra, a resident of Hisar, has been accused of endangering the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India as she carried out suspicious activities and exchanged Indian intelligence information with a Pakistani national declared ‘persona non grata’ by the Government of India on charges of espionage. Malhotra has been sent on five-day police remand.
In an exciting YouTube short posted in March, Malhotra detailed her trip to Pakistan and said she visited Hindu pilgrimage sites. “First we clear Indian immigration, then cross the Attari-Wagah border. When you cross the border, there is a lot of excitement. It is a memorable moment, goosebumps. When you enter Pakistan, there is media coverage of travellers,” she says in Hindi.
“Then you convert Indian rupees into Pakistani currency. I got 2.6 Pakistani rupees for every Indian rupee. I was at a loss, I thought I would get three,” she adds. Other videos posted this year show her roaming the streets of Lahore, doing a “Ramadan food tour” and visiting temples.
