YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra Arrested for Alleged Espionage for Pakistan
New Age Islam News Bureau
18 May 2025
• YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra Arrested for Alleged Espionage for Pakistan
• Women From Pakistan, Middle East Showcase Powerful Themes At International Film Festival In Islamabad
• "She Visited Pakistan To Shoot Videos": Father Of Travel YouTube Arrested For Spying
• Iran’s Women’s Sitting Volleyball Team To Compete In PVAO
• Worldwide, Many Women Relied On The U.S. For Financial Support. This Afghan Woman Dares To Speak Out.
• 3 Bangladeshi Women Held In Khopoli For Illegally Residing In India Without Valid Documents
• Bangladeshi Woman Living Under Fake Identity Arrested In Haridwar
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/jyoti-malhotra-arrested-espionage-pakistan/d/135570
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YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra Arrested for Alleged Espionage for Pakistan
May 18, 2025
Who is Jyoti Malhotra
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Jyoti Malhotra Pakistani Spy: Tensions have been high between India and Pakistan for the past few days. Following the Pahalgam terrorist attack, India launched Operation Sindoor against Pakistan, leading to a near-war situation between the two countries. Amidst this, police forces across India have been on high alert. Recently, a young woman has been arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan. Jyoti Malhotra’s name is currently trending on social media. Television stars and Bollywood celebrities alike are expressing their outrage and reactions to this case. Let’s find out who Jyoti Malhotra is.
Jyoti Malhotra is a popular YouTuber from Haryana. She is known on social media for her travel vlogs and glamorous lifestyle. Police have been tracking her for allegedly working as a spy for Pakistan. Jyoti is accused of providing sensitive information related to India to Pakistani intelligence agencies. Her arrest has caused a stir across the country, with people searching for information about her and her whereabouts.
Jyoti Malhotra is a well-known social media influencer and YouTuber from Hisar, Haryana. She runs a YouTube channel called ‘Travel with Jo’, which boasts over 3.77 lakh subscribers. She also has 1.31 lakh followers on Instagram. Jyoti is 33 years old and resides in New Agrasen Colony, Ghoda Farm Road, Hisar. Her father’s name is Harish Kumar Malhotra.
Jyoti obtained a Pakistani visa in 2023 and visited the neighbouring country. Before her trip, she met an official named Danish, who worked at the Pakistan High Commission in India. Following this meeting, she established contact with Pakistani intelligence agencies, and her relationship with them gradually deepened. Jyoti’s videos garnered millions of views. Notably, she had posted several videos related to Pakistan on her social media accounts, which raised suspicions among the agencies, ultimately leading to the exposure of the case.
Jyoti was arrested in a joint operation by Hisar police and the Intelligence Bureau (IB). She was apprehended in the New Agrasen Extension area of Hisar. Police have arrested a total of six people in this case, including Jyoti. The court has remanded her in police custody for five days for further questioning.
According to social media posts, Jyoti was in Jakarta, Indonesia, three days before her arrest. She posted a video on Instagram of herself travelling on a train in Jakarta. In a previous post, she was seen on a flight to Singapore. However, it is unclear whether these photos were taken at the time or were older photos posted later on social media.
Source: www.patrika.com
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Women from Pakistan, Middle East showcase powerful themes at international film festival in Islamabad
UROOSA JADOON
May 18, 2025
People attend Women International Film Festival (WIFF) in Islamabad, Pakistan, on May 17, 2025. (AN photo)
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ISLAMABAD: Pakistani women filmmakers, along with their colleagues from Egypt, Lebanon, and other countries, this week showcased short films focusing on powerful themes such as grief, resistance, and patriarchal oppression at the ninth edition of the Women International Film Festival (WIFF) in Islamabad.
Organized by the Women Through Film community organization that aims to empower women filmmakers by promoting their art, the ninth edition of the festival was hosted at the Islamabad Community Library at the capital city’s I-8 sector on Saturday night.
The open-air event showcased 11 short films from filmmakers hailing from eight countries, namely Pakistan, Canada, Spain, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, Sweden, and France. Three of the films were Pakistani productions while the rest were helmed by international filmmakers.
“We try to prioritize locally made films, and I am glad we have three Pakistani films this year. The films from Iran and Lebanon touched upon resistance and war and how that affects the lives of normal people,” she said.
The festival also featured panel discussions on filmmaking and the role of women in it. Anya Raza, whose film about an Afghan teacher dealing with the horrors of conflict, was one of the highlights of the festival.
Alongside her on a panel discussion were filmmakers MaryaJavad and Nargis Muneeb, co-founder of the Islamabad Film Society. The conversation delved into the power of storytelling to challenge narratives and provide a voice to marginalized communities.
“This platform was created to give women a space to make films and submit them,” Raza explained. “The stories seen as controversial need to be shown more because they break the status quo. They shatter the concept of normalcy and allow people to take meaningful lessons.”
For Ayesha Siddiqa, a 25-year-old marketing professional, WIFF was an “eye-opener.” The Egyptian film ‘If The Cat Is Gone,’ which explored the complexities of friendship and societal judgments, stood out for Siddiqa the most.
The event also offered a valuable networking opportunity for filmmakers. Jawad Sharif, a seasoned award-winning filmmaker, said festivals such as the WIFF are essential for the creative community.
“Such events motivate artists. In a society where stories of grief and struggle are often ignored, festivals like this ensure they are heard,” he said.
“If women create films, they often focus on women’s issues or human rights, which are rarely highlighted in mainstream media,” she pointed out. “Events like WIFF allow these stories to be told.”
“Stories about refugees and the human cost of conflict are rarely given space,” she said. “But they need to be told, and festivals like this ensure they reach the audience.”
“This time we couldn’t garner much support and had to rely on partners. But next year will be our tenth edition, and we hope to make it grand,” she added.
Source: Www.Arabnews.Com
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2601189/lifestyle
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"She Visited Pakistan To Shoot Videos": Father Of Travel YouTuber Arrested For Spying
May 18, 2025
Hisar: Father of the woman arrested by Haryana Police on charges of spying, has said that his daughter visited Pakistan to shoot videos for YouTube and demanded return of phones taken by police.
He said police has taken their bank documents, phone, laptop, and passport. He said his daughter used to visit Delhi and had been in Hisar for the last four-five days.
Jyoti Rani was interrogated for allegedly passing information to the Pakistani side. She allegedly met a Pakistani officer, Ahsan-ur-Rahim, in Delhi, travelled to Pakistan twice, and shared sensitive information.
Hisar DSP Kamaljeet said the police has taken the woman on five-day remand. She has been booked under Official Secret Act and relevant sections of BNS.
"Yesterday, based on inputs that we had, we arrested Jyoti, daughter of Haris Kumar, under the Official Secret Act and BNS 152. We have received some suspicious things after we recovered her mobile and laptop. We have taken her on a 5-day remand, and further investigation is on. She was in continuous contact with a Pakistani citizen," Kamaljeet said.
During the preliminary investigation, the woman told the police that she went to the Pakistan High Commission in Delhi in 2023 to apply for a visa and met a man named Ahsan-ur-Rahim, alias Danish.
She also told the police that after exchanging numbers, she started talking to Ahsan-ur-Rahim and travelled twice to Pakistan. Officials said the woman also told during investigation that she met an individual, known to Ahsan-ur-Rahim, who arranged for her stay and travel and arranged meetings with Pakistani security and intelligence agencies.
Source: Www.ndtv.com
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Iran’s women’s sitting volleyball team to compete in PVAO
May 17, 2025
The 2025 PVAO will feature both women’s and men’s sections, but Iran will only compete in the women’s category. The participating teams include China, Iran, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Mongolia, and Australia, according to the team’s technical director, Hadi Rezaei.
“China are the Paralympic champions and one of the strongest teams in Asia. Japan are also ranked 11th in the world, so the main competition for the first to third places will be among China, Iran, and Japan,” Rezaei stated.
“Our team are preparing for the 2026 Asian Para Games and the 2028 Paralympic Games. We need to organize more training camps and send the team to international tournaments to accelerate their development. Our women possess enormous potential that requires greater support so they can showcase their abilities.”
“Our women are currently ranked second in Asia and tenth in the world. With more investment, we can solidify our position and improve further. Although the program in China might not produce the expected results, we are confident that, in Nagoya, we can perform at our very best,” Rezaei concluded.
Source: Www.Tehrantimes.Com
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/513160/Iran-s-women-s-sitting-volleyball-team-to-compete-in-PVAO
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Worldwide, Many Women Relied on the U.S. for Financial Support. This Afghan Woman Dares to Speak Out.
by Jodi Enda
5/17/2025
I’ve been writing for decades about America’s on-again-off-again support for the reproductive healthcare of women around the world, focusing on the Republican presidents who have slashed funding and jeopardized women’s lives. During that time, I’ve interviewed many women, primarily in poor countries, who have struggled to obtain care for themselves or others. Their stories are often scary, heart-breaking and, quite literally, painful.
When I spoke by phone to Seema Ghani in February, there was something more. Unlike many women I had reached out to this year in countries that have relied on the United States for financial support, Ghani was not afraid to speak to me—even though her homeland, Afghanistan, is the world’s most oppressive for women.
Ghani is vice chair of the board of the Afghan Family Guidance Association (AFGA), a non-governmental organization that provides women with sexual and reproductive health services, including pre- and postnatal care, counselling, contraception and post-abortion care. (Abortion itself is illegal except to save a woman’s life.)
That’s just the latest in a long list of roles for the college-educated human rights activist, who fled Afghanistan during the civil war in the 1990s only to return in 2002 to help rebuild it. During the two decades that the U.S. military had a presence there, she held two high-level government jobs, led a drive to reform the Chamber of Commerce (then joined its board), founded charity organizations to help women and children, worked with Afghan refugees, headed an anti-corruption committee and chaired a nonprofit that encouraged entrepreneurship.
Ghani—like all women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan—is no longer permitted to head an organization, either within the government or without. She has shifted to conducting research on the impact of the Taliban on women’s healthcare and to doing volunteer work to enhance reproductive health services for women in a country that once again restricts their movement and their options. She splits her time between Kabul and London.
To call her a powerhouse would be an understatement. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when Ghani opened up to me about the consequences of President Donald Trump’s January order freezing almost all United States foreign assistance, including the money that helped sustain AFGA. Others I contacted were worried that speaking out about the freeze would permanently endanger the aid their organizations hoped the U.S. would eventually restore.
When I asked her about the ramifications of Trump’s directive, she did not mince words. Because of the freeze, Ghani said, “We’re stopping the standard, ordinary reproductive health to women—and we’re talking about women that did not have access to any health centers in their life before.”
I quoted Ghani briefly in a data-oriented story I penned last month about the global impact of Trump’s freeze on women’s family-planning and reproductive health. But there was much more to our initial conversation and follow-up emails.
Among the things she wanted me to know, and repeated many times for emphasis, were that U.S. money paid for much more than the $15 million in condoms that at least one member of Congress had highlighted, and that without it, women’s reproductive healthcare would suffer in immeasurable ways.
To date: Of the 39 women’s clinics funded by the U.S. (through its contribution to the United Nations’ family-planning arm, UNFPA), 21 have now closed, Ghani emailed me last month. Another 18 are in limbo. Most of the facilities, she said, are in the countryside, “where a woman doesn’t have access to any other kind of service. She needs this center and this center is closed now.”
The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), which also contributes to AFGA, reported that the organization stands to lose as much as 40 percent of its $6.7 million annual budget. That would effectively strip 439,068 people of their healthcare annually, the report says.
AFGA operates several types of clinics, including full-service facilities staffed by doctors, Family Health Houses with one midwife and one nutritionist, and mobile health clinics intended to travel among provinces that have no other health services. The Taliban, however, prohibited the mobile units from actually being mobile, making it more difficult for women—who can’t leave their homes without male chaperones over the age of 14—to reach the far-flung health facilities, Ghani said.
AFGA also works in Kabul, where it recently opened a hospital with money from the U.S. and Norway. “There are no male doctors, no male nurses, no man basically inside [the] hospital,” Ghani said. “It’s a female center, completely.”
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which the Trump administration has dismantled, was “very supportive” of the hospital, Ghani said. “But unfortunately, now I don’t know what’s going to happen. I mean, I’m very pessimistic, because I think even after three months in our review, [the] U.S.A. might sort of decide not to fund anything reproductive-rights related, reproductive-health related. … I don’t think they’re going to fund reproductive health in Afghanistan again.”
The State Department, which has been reviewing all foreign aid contracts to ensure they are “fully aligned” with American foreign policies, has not released a final list specifying which projects will be terminated and which will survive. But it has informed UNFPA—which funded programs that it says prevented 17,000 maternal deaths, 9 million unintended pregnancies and nearly 3 million unsafe abortions the past four years—that all its grants have been canceled and its approximately $180 mllion in annual aid eliminated.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meanwhile, has announced that the vast majority of foreign grants will be eliminated, and documents leaked to Congress members reportedly indicate that nearly all family planning and reproductive health grants are on the chopping block.
That’s particularly bad for the women of Afghanistan, a poor, war-ravaged country with a high maternal mortality rate and low life expectancy and, Ghani said, very few options for the 90 percent of the population that lives in rural areas.
Source: Msmagazine.Com
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3 Bangladeshi Women Held In Khopoli For Illegally Residing In India Without Valid Documents
Raina Assainar
May 18, 2025
Navi Mumbai: The Khopoli Police have arrested three Bangladeshi women for illegally residing in India without any valid documents. The women were apprehended in the Patel Nagar area of Milgaon, Khopoli. In addition, a woman suspected of providing them shelter for personal financial gain has also been arrested.
The arrests were made following a special operation carried out on May 15 by the Khopoli Police team under the leadership of Senior Police Inspector Shital Raut. The operation was launched based on confidential information and under the guidance of Sub-Divisional Police Officer (Khalapur) Vikram Kadam, in line with ongoing directives from Raigad Superintendent of Police Somnath Gharge and Additional SP Abhijit Shivthare.
“During the raid, three women were found residing without valid passports or Indian visas. Upon interrogation, they admitted to being citizens of Bangladesh, originally from Jamrildanga, Kalia Police Station, Narail District, Bangladesh. The women could not provide any legal documentation authorizing their entry or stay in India, and further confessed to entering the country unlawfully,” Inspector Raut said.
A case has been registered on Thursday at the Khopoli Police Station under various sections of the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920; Passport Rules, 1950; and the Foreigners Act, 1946. All three women were produced before the court and have been remanded to police custody until May 20.
Further investigation revealed that the women had been staying in Khopoli for the past ten days, having arrived from Kharghar. Based on their statements, the police also arrested another woman residing in MilkatkarWadi, Patel Nagar, Khopoli, for allegedly providing them shelter. She is also suspected to be a Bangladeshi national, and her background is currently under detailed investigation.
The investigation is being led by Assistant Police Inspector SujeetGadade under the supervision of Senior Police Inspector Raut. The team included PSI Pooja Chavan, PSI K.S. Nikam, and constables Satish Bangar, Asha Bhoye, Swapnil Lad, and PranitKalamkar, who were instrumental in executing the operation successfully.
The operation is part of an ongoing campaign by Raigad District Police to identify and act against illegal immigrants residing in the region.
Source: www.freepressjournal.in
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Bangladeshi woman living under fake identity arrested in Haridwar
17 May, 2025
Haridwar, May 17 (PTI) During a verification drive against illegal immigrants, a Bangladeshi woman was caught here for allegedly living illegally, officials said on Saturday.
The accused, Rubina Akhtar, had been living as ‘Ruby Devi’ in the RodiBelwal area near Har kiPauri for the last several years, Pramendra Singh Doval, SSP (Haridwar), said.
Two Aadhaar cards and PAN cards have been recovered from Akhtar. On one Aadhaar card, the address is Brahmapuri, and on the PAN card, her name is written as Ruby Devi, daughter of Shrikant, according to police.
The woman and her family were arrested when, during the verification drive, police found that the language spoken by her did not seem to be local, he said.
According to SSP, Akhtar and Dubey had been working as daily wage labourers, and it was Dubey who allegedly arranged a fake Aadhaar card for her. A fake ID card has also been made for Akhtar’s son.
A case has been registered against the trio under serious sections, including the Foreigners Act, which pertains to living in India without a passport or visa, Doval said.
Meanwhile, 64 people, mostly from Assam, living in slums in Jamalpur Kala village under Kankhal police station limits, were detained on suspicion.
Source: Theprint.In
https://theprint.in/india/bangladeshi-woman-living-under-fake-identity-arrested-in-haridwar/2629406/
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/jyoti-malhotra-arrested-espionage-pakistan/d/135570