Nagpur: The Nagpur Bench of Bombay High Court on Friday provided no relief to Brahmos Aerospace engineer Nishant Agrawal, who is accused of passing off sensitive information to Pakistan’s intelligence agency ISI.
Hearing the bail plea filed by Agrawal, Justice Vinay Deshpande said that his bench is not hearing the petitions filed under Sections 438 and 439 of CrPC. Justice Deshpande directed the lawyers Adv Sunil Manohar and Adv Prakash Jaiswal representing Agrawal to file the bail application before another bench.
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Monday 02 March 2025
Agrawal, a Senior Systems Engineer in Brahmos Aerospace facility in Nagpur, was arrested on October 8, 2018 in a joint operation by Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra Anti- Terrorism Squad (ATS). The ATS had raided Agrawal’s Ujwal Nagar-based house and seized a laptop and other materials. A case under Official Secrets Act was registered and Agrawal was arrested. He was taken to Lucknow for interrogation.
Brahmos Aerospace is a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia) of Russia.
According to police, Agrawal’s name cropped up during the interrogation of BSF jawan Achutanand Mishra, who was arrested for allegedly spying for Pakistan’s ISI.
Mishra, according to sources, was honey-trapped by a woman who claimed to be a defence correspondent from Pakistan.
The two were in touch since 2016. During the course of this probe, the ATS came across two more Facebook accounts which had women on their profile pictures and were seen to be in touch with Agrawal.
According to police, the accused Agrawal was supervising the new projects at BrahMos’s Nagpur and Pilani facilities and was privy to a lot of sensitive information.
The handlers seem to be interested in getting information on the new technology that was being developed jointly by India and Russia.
