Nagpur court grants life imprisonment to ex-BrahMos engineer for spying for Pakistan’s ISI

Nishant Pradeepkumar Agrawal, a senior systems engineer with BrahMos Aerospace, was arrested in October 2018 on espionage charges

The court convicted Agrawal under Section 235 of CrPC, Section 66 (f) of IT Act, and various sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA), 1923.

A court in Nagpur on Monday granted life imprisonment to Nishant Pradeepkumar Agrawal, a former engineer of BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd, who was arrested in 2018 for allegedly spying for Pakistan’s ISI.

While awarding life imprisonment, district and additional sessions judge M V Deshpande held Agrawal guilty and convicted him under Section 235 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), for an offence punishable under Section 66 (f) of the IT Act, and various sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA), 1923.

Agrawal, a senior systems engineer with BrahMos Aerospace, was arrested when he was 27 in October 2018 on espionage charges in a joint operation carried out by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Military Intelligence (MI). The agencies were investigating whether Agrawal leaked sensitive data about BrahMos to his “handler,” who was suspected to be from Pakistan. He was booked under various stringent provisions of the OSA and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

As per the prosecution, it was a case of honey trap and cyber activities by allurement to trap officers in illegal espionage activity. During the probe, ATS came across two more Facebook accounts that had women in their profile pictures and who were found to be in touch with Agrawal.

In April last year, the Bombay High Court’s Nagpur bench granted bail to Agrawal observing that “prima facie there is no material to suggest that the alleged act was committed by the applicant with intention, and to secure the presence of the applicant at the trial, certain stringent conditions can be imposed”.

The High Court bench of Justice Anil S Kilor noted that most of the witnesses did not turn to give evidence and only six had been examined so far, and 11 more were yet to be examined as per the prosecution. Justice Kilor also noted during the trial, taking place in Maharashtra, every hearing was adjourned by a month as the witnesses were from Uttar Pradesh. The court added Agrawal was entitled to bail as the trial would not commence shortly.

BrahMos Aerospace is responsible for designing, developing, and marketing supersonic cruise missile BrahMos, a joint venture between India’s Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s Military Industrial Consortium, NPO Mashinostroyenia.