Mole drove Pak car to J&K unchecked

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Jammu, April 29: Madhuri Gupta, the Indian diplomat arrested for being a Pakistani mole in the Indian high commission in Islamabad, managed to drive her vehicle, which was registered in Pakistan, through the Wagah border into Punjab and then all the way to a doctor couple’s house in Sunderbani town, bordering Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district, without being detected.

Ms Gupta crossed the state of Punjab and entered Jammu and Kashmir driving a Toyota with an Islamabad registration without the help of a driver on March 29, 2010. Ironically, no security agency was aware of that prior to her arrest a few days ago.
The only people who had any suspicions were an officer of the local Army unit in Sunderbani and a jawan, who after verification of her record left “satisfied”. During her two-days here, the woman diplomat moved freely in different parts of Sunderbani, Nowshera and Jammu city before heading back to Islamabad without a hiccup.
All these details were shared by the doctor couple, Khem Raj Sharma and Champa Sharma, whose name figured in the spy controversy, while talking to the media at their residence in Sunderbani on Thursday.
The couple denied all media reports that they had been “in the loop of Ms Madhuri Gupta” for quite long and used to exchange emails besides holding regular telephonic conversations. “She came driving from Islamabad. I was amazed she had come driving alone from Islamabad. She came on March 29 this year and on March 30 an Army jawan came asking about the vehicle. We explained she had come driving from Islamabad and he met Madhuri and checked her papers and they were in order,” they stated.
Ms Gupta travelled from Islamabad in her car, without her driver. She drove all the way through the Wagah border to Amritsar, then went to Jammu, and finally halted at Sunderbani on March 29. Here she met her three purported friends — the doctor couple and Dr Prem Lata of New Delhi.
Ms Gupta stayed two nights at Sunderbani before leaving for Jammu in the afternoon of April 1 while Dr Lata, who flew to Jammu from New Delhi on March 29 and reached Sunderbani by road, left their house on the third day — April 2. The doctor couple clarified that Ms Gupta and Dr Lata only visited the temples.
Sources said that they visited the Swami Vishavatma Nand Sarswati Charitable Trust, which runs six to seven educational institutions in Sunderbani and Nowshera and Dabbar village of Nowshera.
Dr Champa Sharma said she came in contact with Ms Gupta through a common friend, Dr Prem Lata, at New Delhi’s Lady Hardinge Medical College where she studied many years ago. She said Ms Gupta spent a couple of days at their nursing home-cum-residence, which she runs along with her husband, Dr Khem Raj Sharma, who had already retired from the state’s health service.
It is learnt that Ms Gupta had also visited the doctor couple at Ramban about 25 years ago, when they were posted there, on her way to the Kashmir Valley. The doctor couple’s medical facility-cum-home in Sunderbani has been put under surveillance and their movements restricted by the police, which is keeping a close watch on it, KTNS Sunderbani said.
Dr Khem Raj Sharma said, “We are shocked at Madhuri’s arrest. She (Dr Champa Sharma) has been under acute stress since the news was flashed.” He asked if his wife had committed any wrong by striking a friendship with the accused. “We are unable to sleep,” he said.
A high-ranking retired Army officer and a RAW official have also come under the scanner of the security agencies. Highly-placed sources said the officer was a recently retired major-general.
Dr Khem Raj Sharma and his wife were questioned for about two hours at Sunderbani by a police team headed by Nowshera ASP R.K. Bhat, but senior officers denied this. A seven-member team of Central intelligence officials was scheduled to arrive in Jammu to quiz the doctor couple but the team had not reached till late Thursday evening.

Shuchismita