Indian diplomat Madhuri Gupta, arrested on charges of spying, drove all the way from Islamabad to Sunderbani in Rajouri for a reunion with friends. But little did the friends know the meeting would kick off a storm.
Dr KR Sharma and Dr Champa Sharma, who run a nursing home at Sunderbani, had played host. Gupta, lovingly called Madhu by friends, was introduced to Champa through a common friend, Dr Prem Lata of Delhi. “The couple is being questioned. But nothing untoward has been found against them,” a source said.
Lata and Champa were friends at the Lady Hardinge Medical College 30 years ago. Gupta studied with them till pre-medical, but while she later joined the foreign service, the other two became medicos.
“We met after a long time. I came by flight in the morning, and she came in her vehicle from Islamabad to Sunderbani. She left Sunderbani a day earlier, as she had to join back, and I took the flight the next day back home,” said Lata.
Friends recall Gupta as an “upright and decent” officer who is suffering from diabetes. “What I am hearing in the media is shocking, as I know Madhu. She is not driven by this (greed). I sincerely feel that there is some confusion as she is not that type of person who will do anything anti-national. She will not do it, and I repeat, not at all,” Lata said.
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