Former BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd engineer Nishant Agarwal was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Nagpur district court for espionage on behalf of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, ISI. Alongside life imprisonment, Agarwal received a 14-year rigorous imprisonment (RI) term and a Rs 3,000 fine.
Additional Sessions Court Judge M.V. Deshpande delivered the verdict, convicting Agarwal under various sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA) and section 235 of the Criminal Procedure Code for an offence punishable under section 66(f) of the IT Act.
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Special Public Prosecutor Jyoti Vajani confirmed the court’s decision, stating that Agarwal was sentenced to life imprisonment and 14 years of RI under the Official Secrets Act, in addition to the fine.
Arrested in 2018 during a joint operation by military intelligence and the Anti-Terrorism Squads (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, Agarwal, employed in the technical research section of BrahMos Aerospace’s missile centre in Nagpur, faced charges under various provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the OSA. Accused of divulging sensitive technical data to Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), he had worked at the BrahMos facility for four years. Last April, he was granted bail by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court.
BrahMos Aerospace, a collaboration between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyenia, manufactures supersonic cruise missiles.
