Nagpur. The District Court of Nagpur on Monday sentenced former engineer of Brahmos Aerospace Private Limited Nishant Agarwal to life imprisonment under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), holding him guilty of spying and providing confidential information to Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. According to the court order, Agarwal will have to undergo rigorous imprisonment for 14 years and a fine of three thousand rupees has also been imposed on him.
In his order, Additional Sessions Court Judge M.V. Deshpande said that Agrawal is convicted under Section 235 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) for the offences committed under Section 66 (F) of the Information Technology Act and various sections of the Official Secrets Act.
Special Public Prosecutor Jyoti Vajani said, “The court sentenced Agarwal to life imprisonment and 14 years of rigorous imprisonment under the Official Secrets Act and imposed a fine of three thousand rupees.” Agarwal was working in the technical research division at the company’s missile center in Nagpur and was arrested in 2018 as part of a joint operation by the Military Intelligence Division and the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
An FIR was registered against the former engineer of BrahMos Aerospace under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the stringent Official Secrets Act. Agarwal was working at the BrahMos center for four years and was accused of giving sensitive technical information to Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (ISS). BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture of India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Russia’s Military Industrial Consortium. Agarwal was granted bail by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court in April last year.