On Monday, a court in Nagpur sentenced Nishant Pradeepkumar Agrawal, a former engineer at BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd, to life imprisonment. Agrawal was arrested in October 2018 on charges of allegedly spying for Pakistan’s ISI.
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.
He was booked under various stringent provisions of the OSA and the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Agrawal who was a senior systems engineer with BrahMos Aerospace, was arrested when he was 27 on espionage charges in a joint operation carried out by the Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and Military Intelligence (MI).
According to the prosecution, the case involved a honey trap and cyber activities using allurements to ensnare officers in illegal espionage activities. During the investigation, the ATS found two additional Facebook accounts featuring women in their profile pictures who were in contact with Agrawal.
In April 2023, 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.”
he 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”.
