Officials, diplomats, and coverage planners in suppose tanks reacted with shock and disbelief on the arrest of Ashley Tellis, an Indian-origin former U.S. authorities official, who has been charged by the U.S. Department of Justice of being in possession of secret defence paperwork, of accessing delicate data on navy {hardware}, and was beneath surveillance over conferences with Chinese officers for at the very least three years. 

Mr. Tellis, 64, is a well known determine and public speaker in overseas coverage circles, and knew most officers dealing with the India-U.S. relationship in Delhi and Washington over the previous many years, since his tenure as Special Assistant to the previous U.S. Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill (2000-2003). 

The information was significantly shocking for officers of the Ministry of External Affairs, given how Mr. Tellis had what one former official referred to as “extraordinary entry” to all ranges of overseas coverage, defence, and nationwide safety buildings in New Delhi.

“Ashley was among the many few foreigners who had an equally good equation with each (the late former) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Prime Minister Narendra Modi,“ a former official, who referred to as Mr. Tellis a “extremely regarded scholar”, stated. In 2014, a guide co-edited by Mr. Tellis, titled Getting India Back on Track: An Action Agenda for Reform, was launched by Mr. Modi at his residence, and in 2022, one other guide he co-edited, titled Grasping Greatness, was launched by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.

Over the weekend, Mr. Tellis was arrested for the “illegal retention of nationwide protection data, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 793(e)”, a regulation pertaining to “gathering, transmitting or shedding nationwide safety data, paperwork, codes, and many others.”, an announcement issued by the U.S. Attorney’s workplace in Virginia stated on Wednesday, including {that a} Federal district choose would decide his sentencing if he was convicted, with as much as 10 years in jail or fines. 

The 10-page affidavit filed by Intelligence Analyst and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent Jeffery Scott on October 13 stated Mr. Tellis was taken into custody on October 11, following seizures at his residence within the city of Vienna, Virginia, primarily based on a particular warrant. 

“Investigators positioned over a thousand pages of paper paperwork with classification markings on the TOP SECRET and/or SECRET ranges at varied places inside the home”, the affidavit stated, and that Mr. Tellis had cooperated in directing investigators, offering keys, and unlocking his laptop.

The affidavit listed 4 totally different events in 2022, 2023, 2024, and on September 2, 2025, when Mr. Tellis met with officers of the PRC (People’s Republic of China) at eating places in Fairfax, Virginia, indicating Mr. Tellis has been beneath surveillance for at the very least three years. It additionally particulars Mr. Tellis’s login to a safe laptop on the U.S. Department of Defense on September 12, 2025, and the printing of a variety of delicate and labeled paperwork, together with one on a U.S. fighter plane. As an unpaid Senior Advisor on the Department of State, and as a contractor within the Office of Net Assessment throughout the Department of Defense, Mr. Tellis had “Top Secret safety clearance with entry to Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI)”. 

The Hindu spoke to a variety of specialists, some whom referred to Mr. Tellis as a “shut buddy”, and expressed shock over the preliminary findings of a cache of labeled paperwork at his house outdoors Washington D.C. Allegations that he had been in contact with Chinese officers, together with a gathering on September 15, 2022 the place he’s alleged to have carried paperwork in a “manila envelope”, and obtained a “crimson reward bag” from the officers, that are talked about within the affidavit, have been met with explicit remark, as Mr. Tellis has in articles and speeches argued for higher India-U.S. relations with a view to comprise and handle the problem from China. 

The Mumbai-born diplomat graduated from St. Xavier’s College and obtained his doctorate on the University of Chicago earlier than he was picked by Mr. Blackwill as a Special Assistant. Former associates on the U.S. Embassy in Delhi on the time recall Mr. Tellis, who was subsequently the Senior Advisor to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, R. Nicholas Burns, had labored to seal the nuclear deal throughout former U.S. President George W. Bush’s go to to Delhi in 2006. In current years, Mr. Tellis had written a variety of items, a few of which upset New Delhi circles, as he pushed for India to purchase extra defence gear and an plane service from the U.S., recommended India abandon its “non-alignment” coverage, criticised India’s “democratic decline”, and in his most up-to-date essay, questioned the viability of India’s “nice energy delusions”.

The arrest defined why Mr. Tellis had “spoken so incessantly and harshly” in opposition to the federal government, the BJP’s National Information and Technology Department in-charge Amit Malviya stated, reacting to the information.

As information of the arrest got here in, suppose tanks within the U.S. and India that had hosted Mr. Tellis as a speaker, and for analysis papers, deleted pages itemizing him as an professional. The Asia Group, which appointed him as a Special Advisor on its South Asia Team in 2020, stated it had terminated his contract on Tuesday (October 14, 2025). Mr. Tellis stays the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and a Senior Fellow on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which has thus far not issued an announcement on the difficulty. 

The Ministry of External Affairs didn’t touch upon the case, and the U.S. Embassy in Delhi stated it doesn’t “touch upon ongoing investigations”.

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