The High Court has given a big relief to Nishant Aggarwal, BrahMos scientist, on the charge of leaking secret information about the missile to Pakistan. Let us tell you that the lower court had sentenced him to 14 years imprisonment in this case. However, now he will be released.
Nagpur/New Delhi. The High Court has given a big relief to scientist Nishant Aggarwal, who is facing charges of giving intelligence information about BrahMos missile project to Pakistan. Nishant, who worked at BrahMos Aerospace Limited, was arrested in 2018 on charges of passing sensitive defense secrets to Pakistani intelligence operatives. He has been acquitted of major charges under the Information Technology Act and Official Secrets Act.
Lower court had sentenced 14 years
The division bench of Justice Anil Kilor and Justice Praveen Patil of the High Court has given a big relief to Nishant Aggarwal by giving an order. Earlier, the lower court had sentenced Nishant Aggarwal to 14 years in jail for sending classified information to the enemies of the country using IT system. Nishant has served 3 years of imprisonment in this case, but after the order of the High Court, now his release will be possible.
What is the whole matter?
- Nishant Agarwal, who was arrested in October 2018 in a joint operation of Military Intelligence (MI) and Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, worked in the Technical Research Section of BAPL.
- BAPL is an Indo-Russian joint venture, which manufactures BrahMos missiles. Investigation revealed that some important documents related to BrahMos missile were found on his personal computer, which was a violation of the security rules of BAPL.
- Nishant was accused that Pakistan intelligence agents trapped him through honeytrap. Sejal Sharma, who had a fake female profile, contacted him on LinkedIn. Being influenced by Sejal, Nishant had installed 3 apps on his laptop from the link sent by her in 2017, which were actually virus malware.
- These apps were stealing data from Nishant’s system and sending it to people sitting in Pakistan. Later it was revealed that the profile created in the name of Sejal Sharma was linked to the Pakistani espionage network. Its job was to extract intelligence information, photos, data by trapping Indian scientists in honeytrap.
- The High Court has accepted that the secret information was on the personal computer of Nishant Aggarwal and he has not leaked any secret information to Pakistan intentionally or for treasonous purpose. On this basis, all the charges against him were quashed, except that he kept secret documents on his personal device. For this he was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment, which he has completed.
Who is Nishant Agarwal?
Nishant Aggarwal has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT Ropar. After this he started working as a scientist in BrahMos Aerospace Limited. Later he joined the team working on the BrahMos missile project.