Ashley Tellis, a prominent US scholar and advisor on India, has been arrested and charged with unlawfully retaining classified information and allegedly meeting Chinese officials, according to prosecutors.

Tellis, 64, born in India and now a naturalised US citizen, has advised the US State Department since 2001 and previously served on the National Security Council under former President George W. Bush. He is widely regarded as one of America’s foremost experts on India and played a key role in negotiating the US-India civil nuclear deal in the mid-2000s.

According to an FBI affidavit, over 1,000 classified pages marked “Top Secret” or “Secret” were recovered from Tellis’s home in Vienna, Virginia, during an October 11 search. The materials were found in locked cabinets, on a desk

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