BrahMos ex-engineer gets life term for spying for Pak

BrahMos Aerospace is responsible for designing, developing and marketing supersonic cruise missile BrahMos, a joint venture between India’s Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s Military Industrial Consortium, NPO Mashinostroyenia.

The agencies were investigating whether Agrawal leaked sensitive data pertaining to the BrahMos to his “handler” who was suspected to be from Pakistan. He was booked under stringent provisions of the OSA and IPC.

According to the prosecution, it was a case of cyber activities by allurement to trap officers in illegal espionage activity. During the course of the probe, the ATS came across two more Facebook accounts that had women on their profile pictures and were seen to be in touch with Agrawal.

In April last year, the Nagpur bench of the Bombay High Court granted bail to Agrawal observing that “prima facie there is no material to suggest that the alleged act was committed by the applicant with intention, and to secure the presence of the applicant at the trial, certain stringent conditions can be imposed”.

The High Court bench of Justice Anil S Kilor had noted that most of the witnesses were not turning up for giving evidence and only six witnesses had been examined so far, and eleven more were yet to be examined as per the prosecution.

It noted that in the trial, every hearing had been adjourned by a month as the witnesses were from Uttar Pradesh. It noted that Agrawal was entitled for bail as trial would not commence in the near future.