Jammu Police booked an Army officer’s wife over alleged research for suspected Chinese operatives. The investigation highlights concerns about AI-assisted analysis of sensitive security subjects.
A case has been filed against the wife of a serving Army officer in Jammu for alleged espionage-related activities after she reportedly used artificial intelligence tools, including ChatGPT and Claude, to prepare analytical papers on sensitive national security issues for Chinese intelligence operatives, news agency Press Trust of India reported on Sunday.
The woman, a resident of Telangana who completed an information technology internship with the United Nations in 2023, currently works as a freelance researcher. She has not been arrested but was questioned after an FIR was registered and is cooperating with investigators, officials told PTI.
Officials said she was allegedly asked to prepare papers on security, defence and geopolitical issues, including Line of Control dynamics in Jammu and Kashmir, critical infrastructure projects in Arunachal Pradesh and the deployment of drones.
The case was registered at Gandhi Nagar police station in Jammu on Friday under provisions of the Official Secrets Act concerning espionage and the unauthorised handling of protected official information. Provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita relating to criminal conspiracy and offences against national sovereignty were also invoked. A deputy superintendent of police has been assigned to lead the investigation.
Acting on a tip-off, a joint team of personnel from a central intelligence agency and the police intercepted the woman at Jammu Tawi railway station on October 14, when she was reportedly preparing to board a train to Pathankot. She was taken to a nearby military station for questioning, officials told PTI.
Her mobile phone was seized and sent for a detailed forensic examination.
The woman married a serving Army officer of the rank of Major in October 2023. She completed a Master of Advanced Studies in European and International Governance in Geneva in 2022 after earning a master’s degree in International Relations from a university in Bengaluru in 2021.
She had also completed an online internship with the Centre for Land Warfare Studies in New Delhi and written several research articles, officials said.
Questioning indicated that she had interacted with several foreign nationals during her UN internship, including a Chinese national with whom she allegedly remained in contact through WhatsApp.
Officials claimed that she was also in contact through social media in 2024 with a Malaysian national who ran a consultancy and was allegedly working for Chinese intelligence agencies.
During questioning, the woman maintained that her material was based entirely on open-source research, supplemented by OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.
Preliminary data extracted from her phone showed documents on sensitive subjects, including the India-Italy defence meeting at the Manekshaw Centre, the Indian Army Chief’s visit to the United States, the India-Russia defence pact, the Kalai-II Hydroelectric and Kamala projects in Arunachal Pradesh, the Cold Start doctrine, India-Seychelles relations, projects in Assam and India-China relations, officials told PTI.
