Former Kerala cop fabricated 1994 ISRO spy case after Maldives woman spurned his sexual advances: CBI

In the chargesheet, the CBI alleged that S Vijayan, who was then an officer of the special branch of the state police, had made sexual advances towards a woman from Maldives at a hotel in Thiruvananthapuram. She spurned his advances, and he left the hotel room, but collected information on her, the CBI said. After coming to know that she had telephonic contact with ISRO scientist D Sasikumaran, Vijayan fabricated a story of espionage, the chargesheet alleged.

It also said that Vijayan, listed as the first accused in the chargesheet, seized the Maldivian woman’s travel documents and prevented her from going back to her country.

Police had initially registered a case against her for overstaying in the country, but the case was later converted into one of espionage after incorporating charges under various sections of the Official Secrets Act.

According to the CBI, the arrests of ISRO scientists Nambi Narayanan, D Sasikumaran, and K Chandrasekharan, and contractor S K Sharma were made at the behest of then Deputy Inspector General in the Kerala police, Siby Mathews, who had headed a Special Investigation Team.

The agency alleged that Mathews allowed those arrested to undergo physical and mental torture by Intelligence Bureau officials while they were in state police custody. Though IB officials questioned the arrested scientists and others, no interrogation report had been prepared.

While Nambi Narayanan and K Chandrasekhar were given medical treatment in police custody, it was not recorded in crime records. The CBI said the medical records were suppressed by DySP K K Joshwa, another accused, at the behest of Mathews.

CBI alleged that former DGP R B Sreekumar, who was working with the IB in Kerala in 1994, was responsible for unauthorised custody and torture of the accused. Sreekumar, the fourth accused in the case, had also played an active role in the unauthorised questioning of the Maldivian woman at the hotel room, and junior IB officials acted as per his directive, the CBI claimed.

The fifth accused, P S Jayaprakash, another IB official, had tortured Nambi Narayanan, the chargesheet said.

“This is a clear case of abuse of law/authority right from the initial stage… To sustain the initial wrongs, another case of serious nature was launched with false interrogation reports against the victims. These false interrogation reports were used for the arrest of others, including scientists,” the chargesheet said.

CBI recommended prosecution of the five accused persons, all of them former police officers, under section 120B, read with 167, 193, 323, 330, 342 and 354 of IPC (before amendment). The FIR had named 11 others, but in the chargesheet, CBI said no prosecutable evidence could be collected against them.