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Pune: DRDO scientist Pradeep Kurulkar was attracted to a Pakistani intelligence operative who used the alias ‘Zara Dasgupta’ and talked to her about Indian missile systems, among other classified defense projects, the chargesheet said. Is. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra Police filed a charge sheet against Kurulkar, director of a Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) laboratory in Pune, in a court here last week.
He was arrested on May 3 under the Official Secrets Act and is now in judicial custody. The charge sheet states that Kurulkar and ‘Zara Dasgupta’ were in touch through WhatsApp as well as through voice and video calls. ‘Dasgupta’ posed as a software engineer living in the UK and befriended her by sending obscene messages and videos. The ATS said in the chargesheet that during investigation his IP address was found to be from Pakistan.
It added that the Pakistani agent tried to obtain classified and sensitive information about BrahMos launchers, drones, UCVs, Agni missile launchers and military bridging systems, among other things. “Kurulkar, who was attracted to her, stored classified and sensitive information of DRDO on his personal phone and then allegedly shared it with Zara,” the chargesheet said. It added that he held talks with them about various projects including surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), drones, BrahMos and Agni missile launchers and UCVs.
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According to the ATS, both were in contact from June 2022 to December 2022. Kurulkar blocked Zara’s number in February 2023, just before the DRDO launched an internal inquiry after her activities were found suspicious. He soon received a WhatsApp message from another unknown Indian number, asking, ‘Why did you block my number?’ The charge sheet said that the chat records also revealed that he had shared his personal and official schedules and locations with her, knowing that she should not have shared them with anyone.
