Haryana YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra sent to 14-day judicial custody

After police interrogation for nine days, a Hisar court today sent YouTuber Jyoti Malhotra to judicial custody for 14 days.

The police produced her in the court of Civil Judge (Junior Division) Sunil Kumar at about 4.30 pm amid tight security. The media and common people were not allowed inside or near the courtroom at the time of her appearance.

Sources revealed that the police informed the court that it had completed its preliminary interrogation and requested it to send her to judicial custody. “There was no debate in the court on the plea of the police. The court completed the formalities and decided to send her to judicial custody,” said an official, adding that it was all completed in five minutes.

The sources said the police had recovered 14 TB of data, mostly videos from her laptop, which would be analysed for further investigation. On completion of the court proceedings, she was taken away in a police vehicle and lodged in the Hisar Central Jail number two — designated for women.

Partial data had been recovered from her mobile phone and laptop, and was being examined, though a significant portion of the data was still being retrieved, said the sources. The YouTuber was represented by lawyers of the District Legal Services Authority as she did not hire a private lawyer.

Investigation agencies suspect that the deleted data may contain sensitive content, including chats with Pakistan intelligence operatives and videos that she may have filmed during her travels.

SP Shashank Kumar Sawan had clarified recently that there was no direct evidence so far linking Jyoti to terrorists.