ISI agent nabbed at Nagpur Brahmos unit

Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) and its Maharashtra counterpart on Monday arrested a suspected agent of the Pakistan spy agency, ISI, working at the Brahmos unit in Nagpur.

The suspected ISI agent, identified as Nishant Agarwal, had been working as systems engineer at the missile unit.

Sources in Lucknow said that Agarwal had been on the radar of the intelligence sleuths after two woman friends of his were detained from Kanpur and Agra in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday night.

Sources said that Agarwal, who was the recipient of 'Yong Scientist Award' in 2017-18, was a resident of Uttarakhand's Roorkee town, about 500 kilometre from Lucknow.

Inspector general of ATS Aseem Arun in Lucknow said that some incriminating documents had been found in the laptop recovered from Agarwal's office at the unit in Nagpur.

''We have also seized an old laptop of Agarwal from his residence at his native town of Roorkee... All the digital documents are being examined,'' he added.

Arun also said that Agarwal had created two fake IDs on Facebook and used to chat at IP addresses registered in Pakistan.

Agarwal would be produced before a court in Nagpur on Tuesday and would be brought to Lucknow on transit remand.

He was being quizzed by a team of Military Intelligence and Uttar Pradesh ATS. The woman friend of his was also being interrogated in Kanpur.

It was suspected that Agarwal had been ''leaking'' sensitive information about Brahmos to his masters in Pakistan.

Sources said that Agarwal could have been honey trapped. Two suspected women accomplices of Agarwal had been detained and were being questioned, sources said.

Brahmos Aerospace is a joint venture of India and Russia.