OSA charge on Nagpur woman who crossed LoC

NAGPUR/AMRITSAR: A 43-year-old Nagpur woman who had been detained in Pakistan for nine days after illegally crossing the LoC in Kargil district of Ladakh to meet a "pastor" she befriended online now stands accused of spying. A zero FIR has been filed against her in Punjab under the Official Secrets Act .

SSP (Amritsar Rural) Maninder Singh said Monday Pakistan Rangers handed over the woman, a former nurse and mother of a 12-year-old boy, to BSF at the Attari border last weekend. Sunita Bholeshwar Jamgade had previously made two unsuccessful attempts to enter Pakistan through Attari. On both occasions, BSF intercepted her.

Nagpur woman's statements raised cops' suspicion about motive of Pak visit

Sunita, a resident of Kabir Nagar in Nagpur's Uppalwadi, is divorced. She had told her family that she knew a pastor in Pakistan with an adopted Muslim name. On May 14, she left her son in a lodge near Hundermaan, a frontier Kargil village, and asked him to wait there till she returned.

After villagers informed the police about the stranded boy, he was put in the care of the Kargil Child Welfare Committee.

Punjab Police said that although Pakistan Rangers decided not to detain Sunita further, her statements had raised suspicion of a motive that goes beyond meeting an online acquaintance in Pakistan.

While Sunita maintained she travelled to Pakistan only to meet the person she was seemingly besotted with, the former nurse couldn't explain how she dodged security amid India-Pakistan hostilities to cross the LoC undetected.

Initial findings suggest she traversed unfamiliar mountainous terrain to meet two Pakistani contacts - a man named Zulfikar and the unidentified "pastor". Sources in Nagpur Police said that security agencies found in her phone messages hinting at ties that may extend beyond a personal relationship.

When she was first stopped at Attari while trying to enter Pakistan in March, the authorities let her off thinking she had a mental health problem. This time, officials suggested, they had enough reason to invoke the stringent Official Secrets Act against her.

Nagpur zonal DCP Niketan Kadam said a team from Kapil Nagar police station would bring Sunita back to the city for a thorough probe into her background and possible motive.

Kargil Child Welfare Committee chairperson Niyaz Ali said that the Ladakh administration had given it permission to escort Sunita's son back to Nagpur.