'I was not honey-trapped': Ex-BrahMos scientist Nishant Agarwal shares lessons from 7 years in jail

Nagpur: "I was not honey-trapped," said the sacked scientist from BrahMos Aerospace Private Limited (BAPL), Nishant Agarwal, who walked out of jail after his conviction in an espionage case was quashed by the Nagpur bench of Bombay high court. BAPL is a high-profile defence establishment making missiles in Indo-Russian collaboration.Talking to TOI after his release, Agarwal, who spent seven years in prison, facing charges of leaking secrets to Pakistani agents posing as Indian girls on the internet, says one needs to be extra vigilant about cybercrimes. "It's got more dangerous since 2018, especially frauds like digital arrests," he told TOI. On the case with Pak agents posing as girls, Agarwal said he only responded to a person named Sejal Kapoor, to whom he emailed his biodata. "Also, I had accepted Facebook friend requests in the normal course from two girls, Pooja Ranjan and Neha Sharma, who were purportedly Pakistani agents. I did not chat with them and had no idea who they were. I met Sejal only on Linked-In which is a professional website and responded to a job offer," he says. As per Uttar Pradesh police's anti-terror squad (ATS), which arrested Agarwal, he was contacted by the women Pakistani agents. Agarwal was also charged with holding official documents on his personal device which were leaked to them.These were only training-related documents, he says, which he received between July and December 2013 as a fresh employee. It was quite an unpleasant period for his family, who would come and see him in jail each month when prison ‘mulaqats' (visits) were allowed, he saidAlso See: Nishant Agarwal"Throughout my term in jail in solitary confinement as an undertrial and later in the general barrack after conviction, I remained a disciplined prisoner. The jail library, which has an exhaustive collection of books, was the only source of solace to me during the crisis," he said.Agarwal said he obtained a master's degree in political science from jail. He also had the chance to read his class 11 and 12 books for physics and chemistry once again at the jail library. "I plan to make a career in business management and after being out on bail for nearly a year, I secured a job as a group CEO at a firm," he told TOI.