ATS gets BrahMos scientist’s transit remand till Oct 12

LUCKNOW: The UP Anti Terror Squad (ATS) has procured the transit remand of BrahMos Missile Research Centre scientist, Nishant Agarwal, who was arrested on Monday on charges of spying for ISI and other countries.

A Nagpur court granted Agarwal’s transit remand to the state ATS on Tuesday, which is bringing him to Lucknow for further interrogation. A UP ATS official said that Agarwal’s transit remand is till October 12.

The UP ATS also searched the houses of two armed forces personnel, based in Kanpur and Agra, who have come under the radar for allegedly passing on vital information to Pakistan. The ATS was exploring Pakistani intelligence agency, ISI’s, depth of network after the arrest of BSF jawan Achyutanand Mishra, in Noida, on September 19.

The BSF jawan was arrested on the charges of sharing crucial information about the armed forces and movement of troops with a Facebook friend. He allegedly also chatted with a woman on WhatsApp who used a mobile number registered in Pakistan.

A senior ATS official said the laptops and mobile phones of the two armed forces personnel were also examined, as part of a larger search of their houses in Kanpur and Agra. He said the ATS team was scanning the Facebook chats of the duo with suspected ISI agents and their activities were under surveillance. He said they will be taken into custody once the ATS collects incriminating evidence against them.

The investigation after the arrest of the BSF jawan led to the arrest of scientist Nishant Agarwal. The arrested scientist is suspected to have leaked information about India’s Brahmos missile.

Agrawal, 28, was arrested in a joint operation by the UP ATS and Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squads (ATS) in Ujjal Nagar on Monday. He was a senior system engineer with BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between DRDO and Russia’s Military Industrial Consortium (NPO Mashinostroyenia) that works on India’s supersonic cruise missile, which can be launched from land, air, sea and under water.

Agrawal, despite being engaged in “highly sensitive work”, was “casual” on the internet and made himself an “easy target”, a UP ATS officer said. He said Agrawal was active on LinkedIn also. He added that classified registered files with red markings were found stored in PDF (portable document format) in the personal laptop of the accused.This is the first spy scandal to hit BrahMos Aerospace, which is involved in making critical components for BrahMos missile, considered the world’s fastest cruise missile and one that can be launched from land, ships, aircraft or submarines.

Dr Pradeep Agrawal, father of Nishant, who was on the court premises when he was produced before the court for transit remand, said that his son could never do any such activities.