Prateek Tanmay
2 min readPuneJul 13, 2026 10:14 PM IST
The trial in the alleged espionage case against former Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) scientist Pradeep Kurulkar commenced before a special court in Pune on Monday.
Special public prosecutor Ujjwala Pawar examined a panch witness regarding Kurulkar’s arrest by the Maharashtra Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS), seizure of his cell phone and other belongings and a search conducted of his office.
Kurulkar’s counsel Rhishikesh Ganu confirmed that one prosecution witness was examined before the court. The prosecution has so far submitted a list of ten witnesses to the court.
On June 18, the special court had framed charges against Kurulkar.
Kurulkar was arrested by the ATS (Anti-Terrorism Squad) on May 3, 2023 under sections of the Official Secrets Act (OSA) for his alleged wrongful communication to a female Pakistani Intelligence Operative (PIO) named “Zara Dasgupta”, who had also been named as a wanted accused in this case. The ATS had submitted a 1837-page chargesheet against Kurulkar on June 30, 2023.
According to the ATS, “Zara” came in contact with Kurulkar through WhatsApp, telling him that she was a software engineer based in the UK. She allegedly lured Kurulkar by sending her several obscene messages, voice calls and video calls over Whatsapp.
ATS alleged that Kurulkar shared sensitive and classified information with Zara during multiple conversations between June 10, 2022, and February 24, 2023.
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As per the chargesheet, Kurulkar and “Zara” had communicated via WhatsApp chats on “Brahmos, Agni 6, Rustom (a medium altitude long-endurance unmanned air vehicle), Surface to Air Missiles (SAM), Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles (UCAV), Drone projects” of DRDO.
The chargesheet also includes their chats on “Quadcopter, DRDO duty chart, Meteor missile, Rafael, Akash and Astra missile” and refers to a private Indian defence company executive who is a DRDO vendor and makes “robotic equipment” for Indian forces.
