DRDO scientist was infatuated with Pakistan’s ‘beautiful spy’, revealed in the chargesheet

DRDO scientist Pradeep Kurulkar was attracted to a Pakistani intelligence agent using the name ‘Zara Dasgupta’ and talked to her about Indian missile systems apart from secret defense projects. These allegations are in the charge sheet filed against Kurulkar. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Maharashtra Police filed a charge sheet against Kurulkar in a court here last week. He was the director of a laboratory of the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) in Pune. He was arrested on May 3 under the Official Secrets Act and is now in judicial custody.

According to the police charge sheet, Kurulkar and ‘Zara Dasgupta’ used to keep in touch through WhatsApp as well as communicate through voice and video calls. The ATS said in the charge sheet, ‘Dasgupta’ had claimed that she lives in the UK and is a software engineer and befriended Kurulkar by sending obscene messages and videos to him. During investigation, his IP address was found to be from Pakistan.

According to the charge sheet, the Pakistani agent tried to obtain intelligence and sensitive information about BrahMos launchers, drones, UCVs, Agni missile launchers and military bridging systems, among others. “Kurulkar was attracted to her and took the intelligence and sensitive information of DRDO in his personal phone and then allegedly shared it with Zara,” the charge sheet said.

According to the ATS, both were in contact from June 2022 to December 2022. It blocked Zara’s number in February 2023, just before an internal inquiry was launched by the DRDO after Kurulkar’s activities were found suspicious. He then received a message on WhatsApp from an unknown Indian number – “Why have you blocked my number?”

According to the chargesheet, the records of the conversation showed that Kurulkar shared his personal and official schedules and locations with the Pakistani agent, despite knowing that he was not supposed to do so with anyone.