The Uttar Pradesh police detained a man employed with Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) in Mumbai on suspicion of leaking sensitive details about the BrahMos cruise missile.
The man has been identified as Nishant Agrawal who has been working for the DRDO for the last four years in its sensitive technical research section of the BrahMos Missile Research Centre.
According to reports, the police suspect that Agrawal was spying for Pakistan’s ISI and other countries.
The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) nabbed the man from Nagpur in a joint operation conducted with Military Intelligence and Maharashtra police. The operation was carried out early in the morning today following a tip-off on Agrawal.
Reports say that the authorities recovered some suspicious material from his possession.
Agrawal is being held for questioning. The authorities might book him under Official Secrets Act.
As per preliminary information, he was reportedly passing on certain classified and secret information to Pakistan and other countries.
Aseem Arun, IG, UP ATS said that very sensitive info was found on his personal computer.
“The name of the person is Nishant Agarwal. We also found evidence of him chatting on Facebook with Pakistan based IDs,” he was quoted as saying by ANI.
The BrahMos Missile Research Centre is involved in making certain critical components for the BrahMos missile, which is the world’s fastest cruise missile and is the only one of its kind that can be launched from land, sea or air.
Developed in a joint venture between the Russian Federation’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya and India’s DRDO, the medium-range ramjet supersonic cruise missile is nuclear-capable and is in service with the Indian Army and the Indian Navy.
The Indian Air Force is seeking to induct air-launched BrahMos, tests of which were successful using a modified Sukhoi Su-30MKI in November last year.