Uttar Pradesh Police Gets 3-Day Transit Remand of ‘Spy’ Scientist

Nagpur (Maharashtra): A Nagpur court on Tuesday granted to Uttar Pradesh Police the three-day transit remand of scientist Nishant Agrawal, arrested a day earlier on charge of spying for Pakistan intelligence agency ISI and other countries, officials said. The Uttar Pradesh Police will soon take him to Lucknow for obtaining his proper remand and further investigatin the sensational case.

The UP Police informed Judicial Magistrate (First Class) S.M. Joshi that the accused, working in the BrahMos Aerospace Pvt Ltd and arrested under the Official Secrets Act, was in touch with certain Pakistani intelligence operatives via two Facebook accounts operated under assumed names of ‘Pooja Rajan’ and ‘Neha Sharma’. These accounts, created in Pakistan capital Islamabad, are reportedly operated by the Inter-Services Intelligence and Agrawal was found chatting with them, police said after presenting the accused in the court on Tuesday. The UP-ATS had monitored these fake accounts aimed to honeytrap key officials working in sensitive defence-related organisations in India.

As per preliminary information, Agrawal was reportedly passing on certain highly classified information to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as well as the USA. However, official circles here are not aware of his access to the type of sensitive information or security clearance levels Agrawal enjoyed in the company. (IANS)