Intellectual Trap: TG army officer’s wife booked for alleged espionage

New Delhi/Jammu: An Army officer’s wife, who allegedly used artificial intelligence tools including ChatGPT and Claude to write analytical papers on sensitive national security issues for Chinese intelligence operatives, has been booked in Jammu for alleged espionage-related activities, officials said on Sunday.

The accused, a well-qualified resident of Telangana who undertook an IT internship with the United Nations in 2023, is currently working as a freelance researcher. Although she has not been arrested, she has been questioned following the registration of the FIR and is cooperating with investigating agencies, the officials said.

The woman was allegedly tasked to write analytical papers on sensitive security, defence, and geopolitical issues, specifically covering Line of Control (LoC) dynamics in Jammu and Kashmir, critical infrastructure projects in Arunachal Pradesh, and drone deployment, they said.

According to the officials, the case was registered at Gandhi Nagar police station in Jammu on Friday under relevant provisions of the Official Secrets Act, concerning espionage and the unauthorised handling of protected official information, alongside provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) relating to criminal conspiracy and offences against national sovereignty. A Deputy Superintendent of Police has been assigned to lead the probe.

Acting on a tip-off, a joint team comprising personnel from the central intelligence agency and police intercepted the woman at Jammu Tawi railway station on October 14 when she was reportedly preparing to board a train to Pathankot. She was stopped and taken to a nearby military station for questioning, the officials said.

Her mobile phone was seized and sent for a detailed forensic analysis.

The accused married a serving Army officer holding the rank of Major in October 2023 after completing Master of Advanced Studies in European and International Governance in Geneva in 2022. She also earned a Master’s degree in International Relations from a university in Bengaluru in 2021. She had also undertaken an online internship with the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS) in New Delhi and authored several research articles, the officials said.

Interrogation indicated that she had interacted with several foreign nationals during her UN internship, including a Chinese national with whom she allegedly maintained contact through WhatsApp. The officials claimed that in 2024, she was in contact via social media with a Malaysian national running a consultancy who was allegedly working for Chinese intelligence agencies. Investigators suspect the woman unknowingly fell into an elaborate “intellectual trap,” believing she was contributing legitimate academic articles on regional and defense subjects.

The accused maintained during questioning that her material was based entirely on open-source research supplemented by AI platforms OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

Preliminary extraction of data from her seized mobile phone showed documents authored on sensitive subjects including the India-Italy defence meeting at the Manekshaw Centre, the Indian Army Chief’s visit to the United States, the India-Russia defence pact, the Kalai-II Hydroelectric and Kamala projects in Arunachal Pradesh, the Cold Start doctrine, India-Seychelles relations, projects in Assam, and India-China relations, the officials said.

Investigators are examining whether the accused engaged in systematic research and information-sharing with suspected foreign contacts under the guise of freelance research, they said, adding that a comprehensive forensic examination of her digital devices and financial transactions is underway to establish the exact nature of the shared material.

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The Hans India