MAHARASHTRA ANTI-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Friday argued before a special court that if DRDO scientist Pradeep Kurulkar (59), accused in an espionage case, is granted bail, the possibility of him contacting the Pakistani Intelligence Operative (PIO) again cannot be ruled out. ATS has opposed the bail application filed by Kurulkar, who was arrested on May 3 under sections of the Official Secrets Act pertaining to spying and wrongful communication with a woman PIO identifying herself as “Zara Dasgupta”, in a suspected case of honey trap. DRDO had suspended Kurulkar from service a few days after his arrest. On August 2, defence lawyer Rhishikesh Ganu had applied for Kurulkar's bail before the special court in Pune claiming that the information he is alleged to have shared with a PIO was not “confidential” but available in public domain. Replying to the bail application, prosecution lawyer Vijay Fargade said that Kurulkar was holding a senior position and if bail is granted, he may create pressure on the witnesses and the possibility of him contacting the PIO again cannot be ruled out. Fargade also said that data deleted from Kurulakar's cellphone needs to be recovered, so he should not be given bail. Meanwhile, special judge V R Kachare allowed an application filed by the ATS for sending a cellphone seized from Kurulkar to the forensic science laboratory (FSL) in Gujarat to retrieve the data from it, which he had allegedly “deleted”. According to the ATS, the PIO identifying herself as “Zara Dasgupta” came in contact with Kurulkar through WhatsApp, telling him that she was a software engineer based in the UK. She allegedly lured Kurulkar by sending her several obscene messages, voice calls and video calls over WhatsApp. ATS has alleged that Kurulkar shared sensitive and classified information with Zara during multiple conversations between June 10, 2022, and February 24, 2023. ATS has named Zara as a co-accused in this case. In the chargesheet (comprising six volumes and 1,835 pages) filed against Kurulkar, the ATS attached details of the WhatsApp chats between Kurulkar and Zara, which were retrieved from his cell phone. As per the chargesheet, Kurulkar and “Zara” had WhatsApp chats on “Brahmos, Agni 6, Rustom (a medium altitude long-endurance unmanned air vehicle), Surface to Air Missiles (SAM), Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAV), Drone projects” of DRDO. Chargesheet also includes their chats on “Quadcopter, DRDO duty chart, Meteor missile, Rafael, Akash and Astra missile” and refers to a private Indian defence company executive who is a DRDO vendor and makes “robotic equipment” for Indian forces.
