Nishant Agarwal, a former Brahmos Aerospace engineer, was sentenced to life in prison by a Nagpur court on Monday for allegedly spying for Pakistan's ISI. 2018 saw the arrest of Nishant Agarwal on suspicion of providing Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI, with material pertaining to the Brahmos missile. Agrawal worked on India's supersonic cruise missile, which could be launched from land, air, sea, and underwater, as a senior system engineer for Brahmos Aerospace, a joint venture between DRDO and Russia's Military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia).

The 2018 case caused a stir since it was the first spy scandal to affect Brahmos Aerospace. Agarwal communicated with two Facebook profiles, Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan, purportedly representing Pakistani intelligence agents. These accounts were thought to be managed by Pakistani intelligence agents based in Islamabad.

Since Nishant Agarwal had won the Defence Research and Development Organization's Young Scientists award, his colleagues were shocked to learn of his involvement in this activity. He was regarded as a gifted engineer who attended Kurukshetra's National Institute of Technology.

Police who looked into the matter said that despite working on susceptible projects, Nishant made himself an easy target with his carefree online persona.

Source : DNA India