India arrests engineer of joint aerospace venture with Russia over ‘spying for Pakistan’

An engineer working at India’s BrahMos Aerospace in Maharashtra’s Nagpur was arrested on Monday on charges of spying for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and other countries, NDTV reported. Nishant Agrawal has worked in the technical research section of the missile center for four years. He was described as a bright engineer and reportedly got married last week. He was arrested in a joint operation by the Military Intelligence and the Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra police, “following a tip.” Police are investigating whether he was “honey-trapped” by Facebook IDs in the name of women, which have been traced to Pakistan. “Very sensitive information was found on his personal computer. We found evidence of him chatting on Facebook with Pakistan-based IDs,” according to Aseem Arun, the chief of the anti-terrorist squad of Uttar Pradesh. He could be charged under the Official Secrets Act. BrahMos Aerospace was formed as a joint venture between India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Russia’s Military Industrial Consortium NPO Mashinostroyenia. The company is involved in making critical components for the BrahMos cruise missile.