A court in Maharashtra’s Nagpur has sentenced one Nishant Agarwal to life sentence for his role in spying for Pakistan. Agarwal worked for BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd as an engineer. He was convicted under under section 235 of the Criminal Procedure Code for an offence punishable under section 66 (f) of the IT Act and various sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA) after charges of spying for Pakistan’s ISI were established against him.
According to news agency PTI, Agarwal will have to undergo 14 years of rigorous imprisonment as part of the punishment for betraying his country.
The order was passed by Additional sessions court judge MV Deshpande.
A report by Hindustan Times said that Agarwal was first arrested in 2018 on charges of leaking information about Brahmos missile to Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI. He worked as a senior system engineer with BrahMos Aerospace, which was a joint venture between India’s DRDO and Russia’s Military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia).
This joint venture was about India’s supersonic cruise missile, which could be launched from land, air, sea and under water.
The development assumes significance that the ruling BJP and its supporters have often questioned Muslims’ loyalty and accused the community of being supporters of Pakistan.