Gujarat court once again denies bail to ISRO employee accused of cyber terror

While arguing for bail, the employee submitted before the court that he was not deliberately involved in the alleged offence and “he himself is victim”, adding that he was “completely capsized by the fictitious Facebook profile”.

According to the prosecution, the accused – from July or August 2022 to January 3, 2023 – shared his email address with unauthorised unknown women and opened it on the computer given/allotted for the office work of ISRO, knowing well that if such unverified files sent by an unauthorised person is opened on the said computer, it would compromise data related to the security of the country, and thereby committed the alleged offence.

It was submitted that malware was sent to the accused by unknown women and 16 different malware files were found in the accused’s mobile phone, that he used his mobile phone without permission when he was on duty, and that the location of the IP address of the unknown women, allegedly a Pakistani agent named Shreya Agarwal, was found in Pakistan. It was also submitted that photographs of officers of ISRO and devices at ISRO were found in the mobile phone of the accused and “there is possibility that the remote access of the phone is given to the Pakistani agent.”

The employee further submitted that the information carried in those files carried “no secret, confidential or sensitive nature (information),” and neither carried information “relating to the safety or security or intellectual property of our country,” and added that he is “not a terrorist”.

The employee was arrested in January following an FIR lodged by the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad on January 7, charging him with cyber terrorism under section 66 F(1)(B) of the Information Technology Act.

The court of principal district judge Vyas, while rejecting the employee’s bail, took into account that the offence “involves issue of national security” and, considering the nature, gravity and seriousness of the offence, held that on the basis of evidence collected by the investigating officer, a “prima facie case is made out” for not granting bail.