Nagpur: Nishant Agarwal, a former engineer at BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd, has been sentenced to life imprisonment under the Official Secrets Act (OSA) for espionage activities on behalf of Pakistan's intelligence agency ISI. The Nagpur district court handed down the verdict on Monday, also imposing 14 years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) and a fine of Rs 3,000 on Agarwal.
Additional sessions court judge MV Deshpande stated in the order that Agarwal was found guilty under section 235 of the Criminal Procedure Code for offences punishable under section 66 (f) of the IT Act and various sections of the Official Secrets Act.
Special Public Prosecutor Jyoti Vajani confirmed, "The court sentenced Agarwal to life imprisonment and RI for 14 years under the Official Secrets Act and fined him Rs 3,000."
Agarwal, who worked in the technical research section of BrahMos Aerospace's missile centre in Nagpur, was arrested in 2018 in a joint operation by military intelligence and Anti-terrorism squads (ATS) from Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
The former engineer faced charges under multiple sections of the Indian Penal Code and the stringent Official Secrets Act for allegedly leaking sensitive technical information to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
BrahMos Aerospace is a renowned joint venture between India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia's military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia).
Agarwal had served at the BrahMos facility for four years before his arrest. He was granted bail by the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court in April last year.
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