Sreekumar pressurised me to arrest Nambi Narayanan: Siby Mathews

Thiruvananthapuram: Former Kerala Police chief Siby Mathews has accused R B Sreekumar, ex-deputy director of the Intelligence Bureau, of pressuring him to arrest Nambi Narayanan and two Maldives natives in the infamous ISRO spy case.

Mathews, who had taken voluntary retirement from the post of director general of police a decade back, made the statement in his bail application filed before a court in the state capital on Tuesday. At least18 officials of the Kerala police and the Intelligence Bureau have started to move for anticipatory bail.

Mathews pointed out that he had relied on details provided by the IB and RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) leading to the arrest of the former ISRO ( Indian Space Research Organisation) scientist Narayanan and the two women from Maldives, Mariam Rasheeda and Fouzia Hassan.

Pressure was also exerted to arrest Raman Srivasatava, who had later retired as the state police chief and was the advisor to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in his first term (2016-21). However, Srivasatava came out unscathed in the case, though his name made headlines then.

Mathews' bail application also points out the presence of a spy network in the state capital, from the statements of the Maldivian women.

Last week, a team of Central Bureau of Investigation officials had took a statement from Nambi Narayanan. The latest CBI team is looking into possible conspiracy on the part of the probe teams of the Kerala police and the IB.

The CBI had registered an FIR with the Thiruvananthapuram Chief Judicial Magistrate's Court against 18 people, including former officials in the IB and the Kerala police, who have been charged with conspiracy and fabrication of documents.

Things changed for Nambi Narayanan after numerous long-drawn court battles when the Supreme Court in 2020 appointed a three-member committee headed by retired judge Justice D K Jain to probe if there was a conspiracy among the then police officials to falsely implicate Narayanan.

The ISRO spy case surfaced in 1994 when Nambi Narayanan was arrested on charges of espionage along with another senior ISRO official, two Maldivian women and a businessman.

The CBI freed Narayanan in 1995 and since then he has been fighting a legal battle against Mathews, Vijayan and Joshua who probed the case and falsely implicated him.

Narayanan has now received a compensation of Rs 1.9 crore from various agencies, including the Kerala government which in 2020 paid him Rs 1.3 crore and later awarded Rs 50 lakh as directed by the Supreme Court in 2018 and another Rs 10 lakh ordered by the National Human Rights Commission.

The compensation was because the former ISRO scientist had to suffer wrongful imprisonment, malicious prosecution and humiliation.