NAGPUR: Nishant Agrawal, convicted for leaking official secrets to Pakistani intelligence operatives, has challenged his life imprisonment in the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court. The court has issued notices to Maharashtra government and other respondents, asking them to respond within two weeks.
Agrawal, an award-winning missile engineer at BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL) in Nagpur, was convicted by the sessions court under Section 235 of Criminal Procedure Code.He was found guilty of offences punishable under Section 66(f) of the IT Act and various sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA) for leaking critical information about armaments to foreign powers.
Arrested in October 2018 through a joint operation by Military Intelligence (MI) and the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, Agrawal was employed in the technical research section of BAPL, an Indo-Russian joint venture that manufactures BrahMos missiles. Investigations revealed that crucial documents related to the BrahMos missile were found on his personal computers, violating BAPL’s security norms.
The ATS probe uncovered that Agrawal had sent classified data to Pakistani intelligence operatives who had honey-trapped him on social media by posing as young women named Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan. They lured him with a job offer abroad and sent him a link to fill in details, which was a malware that accessed sensitive missile documents.
Agrawal, an award-winning missile engineer at BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL) in Nagpur, was convicted by the sessions court under Section 235 of Criminal Procedure Code.He was found guilty of offences punishable under Section 66(f) of the IT Act and various sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA) for leaking critical information about armaments to foreign powers.
Arrested in October 2018 through a joint operation by Military Intelligence (MI) and the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, Agrawal was employed in the technical research section of BAPL, an Indo-Russian joint venture that manufactures BrahMos missiles. Investigations revealed that crucial documents related to the BrahMos missile were found on his personal computers, violating BAPL’s security norms.
The ATS probe uncovered that Agrawal had sent classified data to Pakistani intelligence operatives who had honey-trapped him on social media by posing as young women named Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan. They lured him with a job offer abroad and sent him a link to fill in details, which was a malware that accessed sensitive missile documents.