Bombay HC Issues Notice To State Govt On Jailed Former BrahMos Engineer’s Appeal

Mumbai: The Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court has issued notice to the State government on a plea by Nishant Agrawal, former BrahMos engineer, who was last week convicted for spying for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan and leaking official secrets. Justice GA Sanap issued notice and sought state’s response in two weeks.

On June 3, a Nagpur sessions court convicted Agrawal, an award-winning missile engineer at BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL), under various sections of the Information Technology Act and Official Secrets Act (OSA) for leaking critical information about armaments to foreign powers. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Agrawal was employed in the technical research section of BAPL, an Indo-Russian joint venture that manufactures BrahMos missiles. He was arrested in October 2018 in a joint operation carried out by Military Intelligence (MI) and the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. Probe revealed that crucial documents related to the BrahMos missile were found on his personal computers, which was in violation of BAPL’s security norms.

The anti terror squad’s investigation revealed that he was honey-trapped and shared sensitive information on social media, despite strict guidelines on the use of social media by people manning sensitive positions.

Two women, allegedly named Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan befriended Agrawal on social media and lured him with a job offer abroad. They sent him a link to fill in details, which turned out to be a malware that accessed sensitive missile documents. Raids were carried out by the investigating agencies at Agrawal’s house and DRDO office.

He had relocated from DRDO, Hyderabad to Nagpur in 2014. BrahMos is the fastest cruise missile in the world with a speed of Mach 2.8, nearly three times the speed of sound. BrahMos variants can be launched from land, air and sea, and all three variants are in service in the Indian armed forces.