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Reuters

Agence France-Presse

An Indian journalist arrested this week received tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for giving Chinese spies information regarding the China-India border dispute as well as Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, police have alleged.
Rajeev Sharma, 61, had confidential documents related to the Indian defence department at his home, Delhi Police said.
Sharma was allegedly contacted in 2016 by one handler named Michael, who invited the journalist to Kunming city in China, where Sharma accepted spy deals.
Between January 2019 and September 2020, Sharma was believed to have accepted more than 3 million Indian rupees (US$40,800) from handlers, police said.
India-China border: can the neighbours achieve peace?
A Chinese woman and her Nepalese partner were also arrested for allegedly supplying Sharma with “huge amounts of money” for “conveying information to Chinese intelligence”.
The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Reuters could not immediately reach any of the three individuals or their lawyers.
“On interrogation, Rajeev Sharma has disclosed his involvement in procurement of secret/sensitive information and further conveying the same to his Chinese handlers,” Delhi’s Deputy Commissioner of Police Sanjeev Kumar Yadav said in a statement.


The arrest comes amid heightened tensions between India and China at their border in the Himalayan region. The relationship between the neighbours has worsened since a clash in June that India says of 20 of its troops were killed.
China suffered “far fewer” than the 20 deaths incurred by India’s military in the clash, according to a tweet this week by the editor-in-chief of the Global Times, which is published by People’s Daily, the official newspaper of China’s ruling Communist Party.
India-China stand-off continues in Chushul, where ‘mountains eat up men’
Both have sent massive troop reinforcements, but India has also stepped up an infrastructure blitz at its borders, building roads, bridges as well as high-altitude helipads and airstrips for civilian and military aircraft.
A tunnel nearing completion in the Indian Himalayas will slash by hours the time it takes troops to reach the Chinese border.


The showpiece is a US$400-million tunnel in Himachal Pradesh state, providing an all-weather route for military convoys to avoid a 50-kilometre trudge through mountain passes that are snowbound in winter and subject to frequent landslides.
Labourers are working overtime to get the tunnel ready before Prime Minister Narendra Modi is due to open it later this month.
Still, India’s efforts only belatedly mirror those of China, experts say.
“Earlier administrations wasted two decades,” said Harsh Pant, from the Observer Research Foundation think-tank in New Delhi. “China, and its infrastructure, is much stronger today.”


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India

Indian journalist gave border secrets to Chinese spies, police allege

An Indian army convoy seen at the Srinagar-Ladakh highway near the border. Photo: AP

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An Indian army convoy travels along the Srinagar-Ladakh highway at Gagangeer in Kashmir. China and India remain locked in a stand-off on their disputed border. Photo: AP

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An Indian Air Force fighter jet flies over a mountain range in Leh, the joint capital of the union territory of Ladakh, which borders China. Photo: AFP

JPG for ONLINE

FILE-In this Feb. 11, 2020 file photo, Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh arrives at Parliament House in New Delhi, India. Singh accused China on Tuesday of violating past border agreements and expanding its troop deployment along a disputed mountainous frontier in Ladakh where the two countries have been locked in a military standoff for months. (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)

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Indian Border Security Force soldiers guard a highway leading towards the Chinese border in Gagangir on June 17. Photo: AFP

epa08488469 Activists of Sanskriti Bhchan Manch shout slogans as they stage a protest against China, holding posters of Chinese President Xi Jinping, in Bhopal, India, 16 June 2020. According to media reports, one officer of the Indian Army and two soldiers were killed in a fatal faceoff with Chinese soldiers in Galwan Valley region of the eastern Ladakh. EPA-EFE/SANJEEV GUPTA

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(FILES) This file photo taken on July 10, 2008 shows a Chinese soldier (L) next to an Indian soldier at the Nathu La border crossing between India and China in India's northeastern Sikkim state. A border standoff between Chinese and Indian troops on a remote Himalayan plateau has heightened long-standing tensions while ensnaring a tiny kingdom, Bhutan, between the two nuclear-armed powers. The row has festered for more than a month by the end of July 2017 as India and China refuse to back down in the distant but strategically key territory, reflecting the historic mistrust between the Asian giants. / AFP PHOTO / DIPTENDU DUTTA

In this Oct. 16, 2016, file photo, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, front and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands with leaders at the BRICS summit in Goa, India. At least three Indian soldiers, including a senior army officer, have been killed in a confrontation with Chinese soldiers along their disputed frontier high in the Himalayas where thousands of troops on both sides have been facing off for over a month, the Indian army said. The army said in a statement Tuesday, June 16, 2020, that a “violent faceoff” took place in Galwan valley in the Ladakh region on Monday night “with casualties on both sides.” (AP Photo/Manish Swarup, File)

Map of the China-India border

An Indian Border Security Force (BSF) soldier guards a highway leading towards Leh, bordering China, in Gagangir on June 17, 2020. - The long-running border dispute between Asian nuclear powers India and China turned deadly for the first time in nearly half a century after at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a "violent face-off", the army said on June 16. (Photo by Tauseef MUSTAFA / AFP)

ADDS THE LOCATION DETAILS - This satellite photo provided by Planet Labs shows the Galwan Valley area in the Ladakh region near the Line of Actual Control between India and China Tuesday, June 16, 2020. A clash high in the Himalayas between the world’s two most populated countries claimed the lives of 20 Indian soldiers in a border region that the two nuclear armed neighbors have disputed for decades, Indian officials said Tuesday. (Planet Labs via AP)

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Asia

South Asia


Rajeev Sharma accepted some US$40,000 from China handlers in exchange for information on the China-India border row and the Dalai Lama, police allege
His arrest comes as India is ramping up its defence and infrastructure in the Himalayan region amid heightened border tensions with China



Rajeev Sharma accepted some US$40,000 from China handlers in exchange for information on the China-India border row and the Dalai Lama, police allege.


China-India border dispute

China-India relations

Crime

Espionage