The District Court of Nagpur has sentenced former engineer of BrahMos Aerospace Pvt. Ltd., Nishant Agrawal, to life imprisonment under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) for spying for Pakistan's ISI. Agrawal must endure 14 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI), alongside a fine of 3,000 rupees.
Special Sessions Judge M.V. Deshpande, in his verdict, found Nishant Agrawal guilty under Section 66 (F) of the I.T. Act and various sections of the O.S.A., marking the offenses as punishable crimes per Section 235 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
'The court has handed down a sentence of life imprisonment and 14 years of rigorous imprisonment to Nishant Agrawal under the O.S.A., along with imposing a fine of 3,000 rupees,' stated public prosecutor Jyoti Vajani.
Agrawal, employed in the technical research section of the company's missile center in Nagpur, was arrested in a joint operation by the Military Intelligence and Anti-Terrorism Squads (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra in 2018.
The former BrahMos Aerospace engineer was charged under various provisions of the stringent OSA and the Indian Penal Code. He had worked for BrahMos facility for four years and was accused of leaking sensitive technical information to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
BrahMos Aerospace is a joint venture between India's Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Russia's Military Industrial Consortium NPO Mashinostroyenia. Last April, Nishant Agrawal had been granted bail by the Bombay High Court's Nagpur bench.
