NEW DELHI (Dispatches) – A female diplomat working in the Indian embassy in Islamabad has been arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan, police and the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

""We have reason to believe that an official in the High Commission of India in Islamabad had been passing information to the Pakistani intelligence agencies,"" foreign ministry spokesman Vishnu Prakash told reporters.
""The official is cooperating with our investigations and enquiries,"" he said in a statement made on the sidelines of a regional conference in Bhutan.
A senior police source said the 53-year-old woman Madhuri Gupta, a second secretary in the embassy in Islamabad, had been under surveillance for six months before police swooped.
Gupta, who was a specialist interpreter in Urdu, was posted in the media and information wing of the high commission.
""Mrs. Gupta was arrested from her home in east Delhi (on Sunday) after she was called back for consultations,"" the police officer said on condition he was not named.
Press Trust of India news agency said she was summoned to New Delhi on the pretext of discussions on the eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) set to begin in Bhutan on Wednesday.
Gupta was produced before a court in New Delhi on Monday and remanded to police custody for four days.
She had worked in the mission for nearly three years and is alleged to have passed on information from the Islamabad head of India's external intelligence service, Research and Analysis Wing, to her Pakistani contacts, Press Trust of India news agency said.
Pakistan government spokesman Abdul Basit said that it was upto the Indian government to take or not to take action against the arrested official.
The station head of the research wing in Islamabad, R.K. Sharma, was also under scrutiny in connection with Gupta's arrest, according to PTI.
K.C Singh, a former Indian foreign secretary, told the Times Now news channel that Gupta would in theory have had limited access in her role in the information wing.
""More damage is done if it is someone in the political wing,"" he said. ""However it is a penetration. We earlier had penetration by the U.S. and East Europeans, but this is a first from Pakistan.""
Arun Bhagat, a retired head of India's intelligence bureau, called the arrest ""a matter of shame"" in an interview with Times Now.
Diplomat01: A Pakistani soldier stands guard outside the Indian embassy in Islamabad. The foreign ministry has said a female diplomat working in Islamabad has been arrested on charges of spying for Pakistan. (Photo: AFP/Farooq Naeem)
Diplomat02: The Indian and Pakistani prime ministers are due in Bhutan this week. (Photo: AP)