Nagpur, India

An Indian court on Monday (Jun 3) sentenced a former engineer of BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd to 14 years in prison for leaking sensitive information to Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Additional sessions judge MV Deshpande of Nagpur court said Nishant 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). 

Agarwal has also been fined INR 3,000.

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"The court sentenced Agarwal to life imprisonment and RI for 14 years under the Official Secrets Act and fined him INR 3,000," said Special Public Prosecutor Jyoti Vajani.

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Agarwal used to work at BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd's missile centre in Nagpur for the company's technical research section. He was detained in 2018 by the military intelligence and Anti-terrorism squads (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Later, he was booked under the OSA and several provisions of the Indian Penal Code.

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By the time he was arrested, he had already spent four years at the company and was leaking sensitive information to Pakistan-based operatives of the ISI.

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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.

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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 Organisation.

BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) of India and the military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia) of Russia.

(With inputs from agencies)