ISRO Espionage Case: CBI Chargesheet Reveals Nambi Narayanan Was Arrested Without Proof

New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had filed a chargesheet against two former DGPs, Siby Mathews of Kerala and RB Sreekumar of Gujarat, and three other retired police officials in connection with the alleged framing of space scientist Nambi Narayanan in the 1994 ISRO espionage case.

The chargesheet filed by the CBI in the ISRO espionage case, on Wednesday, revealed that former DGP CB Mathews arrested scientist Nambi Narayanan without any proof and that Narayan was named as an accused on the instructions of Commissioner R Rajeev and RB Sreekumar.

The chargesheet that implicated five including former police officers and Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials, stated that S Vijayan, then a CI, had registered a baseless case against Mariam Rasheeda - a Maldivian woman who later opposed Vijayan's alleged sexual advances - at Vanjiyur Police Station.

As per the CBI, the IB officers had illegally interrogated detainees even in SIT custody. CI KK Joshua, part of the investigation team, was accused of forging documents for his superior CB Mathews.

As per the chargesheet, former IB officer Jayaprakash had physically assaulted Narayanan while the latter was in custody. The chargesheet also revealed that there was no evidence of espionage and that nothing incriminating was found at the scientist's residences.

The accused included former SP Vijayan, former DGP CB Mathews, former DGP RB Sreekumar, former CI KK Joshua, and former IB officer Jayaprakash who faced charges of conspiracy, mistreatment of women, unlawful restraint, and assault.

Three years after registering a case in 2021 following the Supreme Court's directions, the CBI has filed its chargesheet against Mathews, who headed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that probed the 1994 Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) espionage case, Sreekumar, who was the deputy director in the Intelligence Bureau, PS Jayaprakash, who was then posted in the SIB-Kerala, then deputy superintendent of police KK Joshua and inspector S Vijayan.

The CBI had charged them under Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 342 (wrongful confinement), 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to extract a confession), 167 (creating false documents), 193 (fabricating evidence), 354 (criminal assault on women) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), the officials said.

The federal agency had lodged the case on the Supreme Court's orders on April 15, 2021. The apex court had ordered the probe based on the report of a high-level committee, which had said the investigation into the role of erring police officials in the 1994 espionage case involving Narayanan be given to the CBI.

The Kerala Police had registered two cases in October 1994 after Rasheeda was arrested in Thiruvananthapuram for allegedly obtaining secret drawings of ISRO rocket engines for selling to Pakistan.

Narayanan, the then director of the cryogenic project at the ISRO, was arrested, along with the then ISRO deputy director D Sasikumaran and Fousiya Hasan, a Maldivian friend of Rasheeda.

The CBI probe had found the allegations to be false. Terming the police action against the former ISRO scientist 'psychopathological treatment,' the apex court had, in September 2018, said his "liberty and dignity", basic to his human rights, were jeopardised as he was taken into custody and, despite all the glory of the past, was eventually compelled to face "cynical abhorrence."

(with PTI inputs)