An engineer working at the BrahMos Missile Research Centre in Nagpur, who was arrested on Monday on charges of spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and other countries, made himself an “easy target” through his activities on the internet, a police official told a Nagpur district court on Tuesday.
Nishant Aggarwal, who was arrested by a joint team of the Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh Anti Terrorism Squads, was produced before the court on Tuesday. He was remanded in three-day transit custody of the Uttar Pradesh ATS, the Hindustan Times reported.
Aggarwal is a senior system engineer with BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation and Russia’s Military Industrial Consortium. The venture works on Indian supersonic missiles.
Aggarwal was in touch with suspected ISI operatives through two fake Facebook accounts under the names of Neha Sharma and Pooja Ranjan. These accounts were in fact run by ISI operatives based in Islamabad, officials in the Uttar Pradesh ATS said.
However, Aggarwal made himself an “easy target” due to his “casual approach”, said another officer. He claimed the engineer even had an account on LinkedIn, and that top classified information was found on the accused’s laptop.
Aggarwal’s father, however, claimed that his son would never indulge in such “anti-national” activities. “I have full faith on the system,” Pradeep Aggarwal told reporters outside the court. “If he is really involved in such activities he deserves punishment.”
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