Nagpur (Maharashtra) : The Nagpur district court on Monday ordered life imprisonment to former BrahMos Aerospace engineer, Nishant Agarwal, under relevant sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA) for spying for Inter Services Agency (ISI), which is the premier intelligence agency of Pakistan. Nishant is sentenced to undergo rigorous imprisonment (RI) for 14 years and has been slapped a fine of Rs 3,000.
Agarwal was arrested on charges of leaking information about BrahMos Aerospace to Pakistan agency after being honey-trapped, on October 8, 2018 under IPC and OSA. He was found to be in touch with suspected Pakistani intelligence operatives through social media and those accounts were believed to be handled by ISI.
The Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squads (ATS) had nabbed him in a joint raid launched at his rented house in Ujwal Nagar area of Nagpur. Agarwal worked in the technical research section of BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd office in Nagpur that worked on the supersonic cruise missile that could be launched from land, air and sea.
BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between DRDO and Military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia) of Russia. Earlier in April last year, Nishant Agarwal was granted bail by the Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court. Agarwal was the winner of DRDO's Young Scientist award and studied at the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra.
Agarwal was arrested by the military intelligence and Anti-terrorism squads (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra in a joint operation.
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