SRINAGAR: In a case that continues to puzzle law enforcement agencies across three Indian states and the Union Territory of Ladakh, 43-year-old Sunita Jamgade from Nagpur, who crossed the Line of Control (LoC) into Pakistan last month using Google Maps, will now be interrogated by Kargil Police. A police team from Kargil reached Kapil Nagar Police Station in Nagpur on Tuesday with a production warrant and is likely to secure her transit custody on Wednesday.
Sunita’s story has baffled security and intelligence agencies since her illegal entry into Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) via Hunderman village in Kargil, a remote and heavily monitored border zone. She reportedly used a widely available mobile navigation app, Google Maps, to plot her path across the LoC. The breach happened in early May, at a time of heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following the Pahalgam massacre of April 22, in which 26 people were killed.
Jamgade was reported missing on May 14. Nine days later, on May 23, she was handed back to Indian authorities by the Pakistani Rangers, who allegedly let her off after assessing she suffered from mental health issues. Her brief detention and release raised immediate red flags in India’s security apparatus, prompting a case under the Official Secrets Act to be registered against her initially in Amritsar and later transferred to the Kapil Nagar Police Station in Nagpur.
The woman, who initially claimed she had gone to Pakistan for business opportunities, later admitted to police that her actual motive was to meet a man named Zulfikar, whom she had been speaking to on social media. According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone V) Niketan Kadam, investigators recovered several chats from her phone, with Zulfikar being the most prominent contact among two to three individuals she was regularly speaking to on the other side of the LoC. She left her 12-year-old son at a hotel in Kargil when she crossed over. The child, now in the care of Nagpur’s Child Welfare Committee (CWC), has given his statement.
Police sources revealed that Jamgade’s phone was found to be formatted and contained a suspicious mobile application, the purpose of which remains unclear. The phone has been sent for forensic analysis to determine whether it was used to transmit data or had tracking capabilities. Investigators are also trying to retrieve deleted information. Sunita’s behaviour during questioning was reported to be erratic, and officers often received unrelated or confusing responses, suggesting possible psychiatric instability.
Following her return, she was presented before a Nagpur court on May 28 and sent to police custody until June 2. On Monday, June 2, after the end of her police custody, she was remanded to judicial custody. Authorities now hope to take her to the Kashmir Valley for further questioning under tighter security protocols. According to Kargil police sources, the interrogation will focus on whether Jamgade received any logistical support locally while crossing the LoC, what happened during her brief custody in Pakistan, and whether there was any intentional breach of national security.
Significantly, the case may soon be taken up by central agencies. Officials indicated that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is also likely to step in, given the possible espionage angle and the sensitive nature of the breach. Until now, she has not cooperated fully with the Nagpur police, officials said, and answers regarding her motivations remain unclear.
In a case that defies easy categorisation, straddling the lines of personal obsession, digital dependency, and national security, it is now up to the Kargil Police to extract clarity from a journey that began on Google Maps and ended in a jail cell under the cloud of espionage. -(KL)
