The police will soon take him to Lucknow for obtaining his proper remand and further investigation in the sensational case.
The Uttar Pradesh police informed Judicial Magistrate (First Class) S M Joshi that Agrawal, 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’s capital Islamabad, are reportedly operated by the Inter-Services Intelligence and Agrawal was found chatting with them, the police said after presenting him in the court yesterday.
The police had monitored these fake accounts aimed to honey trap key officials working in sensitive defence-related organisations in India.
Agrawal was accused of leaking sensitive information on the BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to foreign countries.
The anti-terror squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh police said that certain secret and ultra-sensitive information was found on Agrawal’s personal computer which it said “should not have been there, and it violates the provisions of the OSA.”
The joint ATS teams of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra also searched his office and seized an old laptop from another location which is being examined.
They said that after the investigations into what kind of chats he was indulging in with the fake accounts on Facebook, Agrawal could be slapped with additional charges.
The UP-ATS also raided two other persons in Agra and Kanpur and seized their laptops for investigations.
As per preliminary information, Agrawal was reportedly passing on certain highly classified information to the ISI as well as the US.
However, official sources in Nagpur said they were not aware of his access to the type of sensitive information or security clearance levels Agrawal enjoyed in the company.
