A Nagpur court has convicted a former BrahMos engineer under anti-espionage law and sentenced him to life imprisonment for spying for Pakistan.
Additional Sessions Judge MV Deshpande passed the order on Monday against former BrahMos engineer Nishant Agrawal.
The accused was sentenced to life imprisonment under Section 66F (acts of cyber terrorism) of the Information Technology Act. he was also convicted under Sections 3 & 5 of the Official Secrets Act, 1923. Under OSA, Agrawal was sentenced to rigorous imprisonment for 14 years and 3 years respectively.
The Sessions Court further imposed a fine of Rs 3000 on the accused, who was working as a senior systems engineer in missile projects of BrahMos Aerospace.
In a joint operation, the Anti Terrorism Squad of Uttar Pradesh and the Military Intelligence arrested Agrawal from near Nagpur in 2018 on charges of passing classified information about the projects to Pakistan.
As per Advocate Jyoti Vajani, representing ATS, Agrawal was in touch with two Facebook accounts based out of Islamabad in Pakistan, and he also received links that turned out to be malware.
The charge sheet said that secret and restricted files were found on Agrawal’s personal laptop, along with the software, which was used to transfer the classified information from his laptop to foreign countries and anti-social elements.
The High Court had rejected Agarwal’s bail application in 2022, granting him the liberty to file another if the trial did not progress in six months.
In May 2023, Agarwal was granted bail by the High Court on the grounds that there was nothing to suggest that he committed the alleged acts with intention.
The prosecution apprised the High Court during the bail proceedings that this was a case of honey trap where officers were lured towards indulging in illegal espionage activities.
The High Court noted that over the period of nine months, only six witnesses were examined. Most of the witnesses had not turned up to testify, it added.
The High Court granted him bail on the grounds that the trial was not likely to begin in the near future .
Post his conviction, the Sessions Court ordered him on June 3 to surrender his bail bonds.