Madhuri Gupta at an event in Islamabad on February 14, 2009. (PTI picture by Rezaul Hasan Laskar); (Above) Gupta’s Delhi home

New Delhi, April 28: One of the first questions Madhuri Gupta is believed to have asked her interrogators is “What took you so long to catch me?”

If the arrested diplomat’s open defiance virtually cast aspersions on India’s intelligence network, many of her colleagues in the foreign service are sceptical about reports that the disgruntled officer wanted to get even by leaking information to Pakistan’s ISI.

A former colleague pointed out that the 53-year-old second secretary and Urdu interpreter at the high commission in Islamabad, arrested last week on the charge of spying for Pakistan, had done stints in Kosovo, Kuala Lumpur and also Baghdad. “Not really a profile of somebody who had been treated unfairly.”

Intelligence sources, however, said Gupta’s interrogation had led officers to believe she was in touch with more than one ISI source. They said Gupta had named four persons, all believed to be members of Pakistan’s spy agency.

Sources involved with the investigation said they had drawn up a list of 12 persons, including two Pakistani journalists she had come in contact with as part of her job as a translator.

Several Pakistani journalists, who interact regularly with foreign missions, however, claimed that they had “never met” Gupta.

“It is for the first time we came to know about her,” a senior journalist told The Telegraph.

The sources involved with the investigation said also on the list of 12 were a senior officer of India’s external spy agency RAW and a Jammu and Kashmir-based couple who frequently visited Pakistan.

The sources said part of the documents she was carrying when she was arrested were correspondence between her and the couple that led the investigators to believe she could be passing on vital information through them.

The claims came on a day foreign minister S.M. Krishna described the middle-level diplomat’s arrest as “serious”.

“Investigations are going on and we will have to wait till the investigations are complete and then find out what was the motive and what was the modus operandi,” PTI quoted Krishna as telling reporters in Bhutan.

Asked if the arrest had brought the Indian high commission under the scanner, Krishna said: “Let’s not be judgmental and jump to any conclusion.”

Intelligence sources said Gupta might have been a cog in a larger espionage network. According to the sources, Indian agencies were not tracking Gupta but another official posted in Islamabad who they felt had been compromised.

It was during this surveillance that they discovered Gupta’s activities to be suspect. Intelligence sources said the alarm bell started ringing when Gupta cornered India’s defence attaché in Islamabad and asked him details about military operations.

Her frequent visits to the Jinnah supermarket and an upmarket cafe called Iffy to meet her contacts were videographed. The sources said Gupta would frequently meet the same four suspected ISI contacts.

Unlike other officials in the Indian high commission who usually travel in groups, Gupta had also taken to going out alone — at least since January when her movements were first monitored.

“It is surprising how an officer responsible for translating Urdu newspaper reports could access important data. If this is true, then it is difficult to digest how Gupta could have accomplished this single-handedly,” said a former intelligence official.

Sources claimed that Gupta had revealed the names of her handlers, some of their contact numbers and email addresses and the places and dates of all her meetings with them. Her last meeting with one of her handlers, the sources said, was in February 2010 after she had a “casual chat” with senior officers.

The sources also indicated that Gupta wasn’t recruited during her tenure in Islamabad that began in 2007 but earlier during her postings in Baghdad, Kosovo or Kuala Lumpur.

Senior home ministry officials today insisted Gupta leaked “voluminous” data. What is also a cause of concern for Indian authorities is that Gupta is believed to have said that Pakistani spies are active in India, and she had been in touch with them during her visits here.

Part of the Indian Foreign Service’s grade B cadre, Gupta is believed to have said she wanted to “teach the IFS a lesson” because she resented the way her colleagues who were from the IFS cadre and not a promotee like her treated her.

But those who have worked with Gupta say that though she may not have got “plum postings” like Washington, she was sent to Pakistan — proof that she was trusted enough to be sent to what is considered the most sensitive posting for any official in the ministry of external affairs (MEA).

Moreover, before being posted to Islamabad in August 2007, Gupta had been an assistant editor with India Perspective, an MEA publication, another prestigious assignment that recognised her intellectual predilections.

Her colleagues are also surprised that Gupta — whom they described as a well-to-do, single woman, polite, cheerful and an efficient worker with a wide range of interests — passed on secrets for money.

Sources said Gupta, who has at least two to three flats in Noida and Delhi, did not have any family responsibilities.