Former BrahMos Aerospace engineer Nishant Agarwal was convicted to life in jail on June 3 by the Nagpur district court under the Official Secrets Act for providing Pakistan’s spy organization, the Inter-Services spy (ISI), with critical material.
His betrayal of his country led to this severe punishment, which includes 14 years of rigorous imprisonment pay a penalty of ₹3,000.
Agrawal was found guilty and convicted under Section 235 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) for an offence punishable under Section 66 (f) of the IT Act and certain sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA), 1923, by the additional sessions judge of the Nagpur district court, MV Deshpande.
In October 2018, the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Military Intelligence (MI) conducted a joint operation that resulted in the arrest of Agrawal, a senior systems engineer with BrahMos Aerospace, on espionage accusations.
Last April, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court granted bail to Agarwal.
BrahMos Aerospace, a joint company between Russia’s Military Industrial Consortium, NPO Mashinostroyenia, and India’s Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO), is in charge of designing, producing, and marketing the supersonic cruise missile BrahMos.
The agencies were looking into whether Agrawal gave his ‘handler,’ who was thought to be from Pakistan, access to private information about the BrahMos. The case involved allegations of honey trapping and cyber activities to trap officers in illegal espionage activity.
Agarwal worked for the corporation that developed the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile in the technical research division. He spent four years employed there.
It was the first spy scandal involving BrahMos Aerospace. As per reports, Nishant was in touch with the Pakistani operatives through two Facebook accounts under the names Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan. These accounts were operated from Islamabad and handled by the ISI.
Agarwal’s involvement in such a spy scandal took his colleagues by surprise as he was a seasoned, skilled researcher, having won the Young Scientists award from the Defence Research and Development Organization.
ISRO Espionage Case
In the 1990s, Indian investigation agencies accused scientists from the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) of espionage.
Senior aerospace engineers were arrested for allegedly attempting to sell confidential documents containing designs of indigenous rocket engines developed by ISRO.
The most prominent victim was aerospace engineer Nambi Narayanan, who later alleged that the United States and CIA may have been involved in fabricating the case to prevent India from entering multi-billion dollar commercial space missions.
Edward Snowden is a former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who revealed the existence of widespread surveillance by the NSA and other government agencies. He leaked sensitive information about the agency’s programs, including PRISM, which allows the government to access the data of millions of Americans.
The BrahMos is a universal long-range supersonic cruise missile system jointly developed by the Indian Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Russia’s NPOM. It can be launched from land, sea, and air platforms.
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is the primary intelligence agency of Pakistan. Its primary responsibility is to safeguard Pakistan’s territorial integrity and provide support to its military forces. The agency operates both domestically and abroad, and is closely associated with Pakistan’s intelligence and security operations.
ISI is similar to India’s intelligence agencies, such as the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), in that they all gather and analyze intelligence to protect their respective countries. However, ISI’s primary focus is on counter-intelligence and counter-terrorism, while RAW and CIA have broader mandates that include foreign policy and strategic planning.
It’s worth noting that Agarwal’s case highlights the importance of national security and the consequences of espionage, regardless of an individual’s background or profession.
