Akshata Sharma
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A Nagpur court on Monday handed life imprisonment to ex-Brahmos Aerospace engineer Nishant Agarwal on charges of spying for Pakistan's ISI.
Nishant Agarwal was arrested in 2018 on charges of leaking information about Brahmos missile to Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI. Agrawal was a senior system engineer with Brahmos Aerospace, a joint venture between DRDO and Russia's Military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia) that worked on India's supersonic cruise missile, which could be launched from launched from land, air, sea and under water.
Additional sessions court judge MV Deshpande stated in the order that Agarwal was convicted under section 235 of the Criminal Procedure Code for an offence punishable under section 66 (f) of the IT Act and various sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
"The court sentenced Agarwal to life imprisonment and RI for 14 years under the Official Secrets Act and fined him ₹3,000," said Special Public Prosecutor Jyoti Vajani.
Agarwal was granted bail by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court last April.
The case in 2018 created a ripple as it was the first spy scandal that hit Brahmos Aerospace. Agarwal was in touch with suspected Pakistani intelligence operatives through two Facebook accounts -- Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan. These accounts, based out of Islamabad, were believed to be run by Pakistan's intelligence operatives.
Nishant Agarwal was a winner of the Young Scientists award by the Defence Research and Development Organisation and hence his involvement in such an activity shocked his colleagues. He was known as a bright engineer, studied at the National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra.
Cops who investigated the case said Nishant made himself an easy target by his casual approach on the internet, though he was engaged in highly sensitive work.
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