NAGPUR: More than five years after he was allegedly honey-trapped by a Pakistani spy to divulge missile-related secrets, former BrahMos engineer Nishant Agarwal was on Monday sentenced to 14 years in prison, with a provision that he would serve an additional six months on failure to pay a fine of Rs 3,000.
Additional Sessions Court Judge MV Deshpande in Nagpur found Agarwal guilty of leaking official data, including sensitive information on weapons of war, to a foreign country, an offence punishable under Section 66(f) of the Information Technology Act and the provisions of the Official Secrets Act.
Agarwal, who worked in the technical research division of BrahMos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian missile joint venture, was 27 years old when he was arrested in October 2018. Documents containing classified information about the BrahMos missile system were found on the hard drive of his personal computer. Investigators discovered that some of this sensitive data had been given to Pakistani intelligence agents. The two, Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan, posed as women and entrapped him on social media. They offered him a job abroad and sent him a malware link that could compromise official missile documents on the target’s digital devices.
Agarwal, who was out on bail for a year during his trial, was remanded in police custody immediately after the verdict was handed down. He is expected to appeal to the High Court on Tuesday.
The high court had earlier criticised the delay in the trial, saying it violated Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees protection of life and personal liberty. The Supreme Court had also directed the court to complete the hearing by May 31.
Additional Sessions Court Judge MV Deshpande in Nagpur found Agarwal guilty of leaking official data, including sensitive information on weapons of war, to a foreign country, an offence punishable under Section 66(f) of the Information Technology Act and the provisions of the Official Secrets Act.
Agarwal, who worked in the technical research division of BrahMos Aerospace, an Indo-Russian missile joint venture, was 27 years old when he was arrested in October 2018. Documents containing classified information about the BrahMos missile system were found on the hard drive of his personal computer. Investigators discovered that some of this sensitive data had been given to Pakistani intelligence agents. The two, Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan, posed as women and entrapped him on social media. They offered him a job abroad and sent him a malware link that could compromise official missile documents on the target’s digital devices.
Agarwal, who was out on bail for a year during his trial, was remanded in police custody immediately after the verdict was handed down. He is expected to appeal to the High Court on Tuesday.
The high court had earlier criticised the delay in the trial, saying it violated Article 21 of the Constitution, which guarantees protection of life and personal liberty. The Supreme Court had also directed the court to complete the hearing by May 31.
