NEW DELHI: Indian police have arrested multiple people in Haryana, Punjab and Delhi —including a travel vlogger and a university professor — over their alleged connections to Pakistan or comments related to the recent escalation between the two countries, Indian media reported on Sunday.
The development follows a military confrontation between India and Pakistan over New Delhi’s allegations against Islamabad about a deadly attack in occupied Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
On the night of May 6-7, New Delhi launched a series of air strikes in Pakistan, resulting in civilian casualties. Islamabad responded by downing five Indian jets. After intercepting drones sent by India and tit-for-tat strikes on each other’s airbases, it took American intervention on May 10 for both sides to finally drop their guns as a ceasefire was reached.
Ali Khan Mahmudabad, an associate professor at Haryana’s Ashoka University, was picked up from his home in Delhi for his comments about the Indian army’s press briefings on its actions targeting Pakistan, termed as “Operation Sindoor”.
The complaint against Mahmudabad was filed by Yogesh Jatheri, general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s youth wing, in Haryana’s Sonepat district, the academic’s lawyer confirmed to Scroll.
Mahmudabad was arrested under offences pertaining to acts prejudicial to maintaining communal harmony, making assertions likely to cause disharmony, inciting secession, armed rebellion or subversive activities and insulting religious beliefs.
In a social media post on May 8, Mahmudabad, the head of the university’s political science department, had highlighted the apparent irony of right-wing Hindutva commentators praising Colonel Sofia Qureshi, who had addressed the media briefings.
He wrote: “Perhaps they could also equally loudly demand that the victims of mob lynching, arbitrary bulldozing and others who are victims of the BJP’s hate mongering be protected as Indian citizens.
“The optics of two women soldiers presenting their findings is importantly [sic] but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it’s just hypocrisy,” Mahmudabad noted.
“The grassroots reality that common Muslims face is different from what the government tried to show but at the same time the press conference shows that an India, united in its diversity, is not completely dead as an idea,” he further said.
The Haryana State Commission interpreted his remarks as “an attempt to vilify national military actions”, the Hindustan Times reported.
The Haryana State Commission for Women had taken suo motu cognisance of his remarks on Col Qureshi, saying they undermined women officers in the Indian armed forces and fomented communal discord.
ThePrint, in an editorial, said: “The vicious hounding and egregious arrest of Ali Khan Mahmudabad for expressing his opinion is a shameful insult to our millennia-old democratic tradition.
“His argument about war and domestic politics is a constitutional freedom. As is your right to disagree. Calling it an insult to women or military is senseless.”
Separately, Indian police have arrested travel vlogger Jyoti Malhotra along with five others from Punjab and Haryana over alleged espionage for Pakistan, according to Indian media.
Malhotra, a 33-year-old from Haryana’s Hisar district who runs the YouTube channel ‘Travel With Jo’, was detained under India’s Official Secrets Act 1923 for allegedly “transmitting sensitive information to Pakistani operatives”, according to India News Network (INN).
According to the FIR, she came into contact with the alleged Pakistani operative two years ago and visited Pakistan twice, The Hindu reported.
Malhotra had uploaded videos on her YouTube channel of her visits to renowned Sikh sites Gurdwara Darbar Sahib and Gurdwara Panja Sahib in Pakistan’s Punjab, with the latest published in March 2025.
According to the Minority Rights Group, Sikhs have a “significant” presence in Haryana and form a majority in Punjab.
The vlogger’s father, who retired from the Haryana electricity department, denied the allegations and said her daughter was being implicated, The Hindu added.
Those arrested with Malhotra included a security guard, a university student and civilians alleged to have “received money or instructions from Pakistani contacts”, according to INN.
Among the suspects are Guzala from Malerkotla in Punjab and her “friend” Banu Nasreena, who were granted Pakistani visas in April 2025, the report claimed.
Also named in the case is Arman from Haryana’s Nuh district, who allegedly provided Indian SIM cards and transferred money on behalf of the operatives.
In another crackdown, Assam Police, acting on army intelligence, arrested seven people and busted a racket allegedly using fake SIM cards to share sensitive information with “Pakistani agents”, Times of India reported.
Other than those seven, 14 were under interrogation.
Times of India quoted Assam police chief Harmeet Singh as saying that police teams were dispatched to Telangana’s Hyderabad as well as cities in Rajasthan and Assam.
Saddik, Arif Khan, and Sajid were arrested in Rajasthan’s Bharatpur and Alwar, while Akeek was taken into custody at the airport in Assam’s Guwahati, Singh said.
Arsad was arrested at the New Delhi airport, Mofijul in Telangana, Jakariya in Assam’s Bilasipara town, Time of India reported.
