Analysis | India’s biggest ISRO spy thriller: Script and direction by 'spurned' Kerala cop

If the final chargesheet filed by the CBI is to be believed, the infamous ISRO spy scandal that rocked the country in 1994 was the result of a revenge plotted by a spurned circle inspector in Kerala. The final chargesheet submitted by the CBI before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Thiruvananthapuram, on March 27 this year, states that the Maldivian national Mariyam Rasheeda was arrested twice in 1994 on the basis of false and motivated reports filed by Special Branch circle inspector S Vijayan.

First time on October 20 on the basis of his report that she had stayed on in India even after her visa expired. Then, a day before her police custody was to end, Vijayan's distorted interpretation of Rasheeda's personal contacts escalated the Maldivian woman's crime to espionage and led to her second arrest on November 13.

Visa power
In his first report Vijayan had stated that he had found Rasheeda staying in a hotel in Thiruvananthapuram since September 17, 1994, during his routine check of foreign nationals. A few days later, Vijayan reported that he had on October 20 visited the house Rasheeda had shifted to from the hotel and found that her visa had expired on October 17, 1994.

Vijayan said that Rasheeda could not satisfactorily explain the source of the money she used for her stay in Thiruvananthapuram and also for the calls she made from the hotel in which she had been staying. The inspector decided that this was a fit case for arrest and Rasheeda was thus arrested on October 20, 1994.

The CBI investigation revealed that Vijayan's version was false. It was true that Rasheeda and another Maldivian national Fauzia Hasan were staying in a hotel in Thiruvananthapuram since September 17, 1994. The rest was cooked up.

It was not Vijayan who came upon Rasheeda but the other way round. Rasheeda had landed in front of him. Her visa was about to expire on October 17 and so she visited the office of the Commissioner of Police on October 10 seeking extension for a few days. She had booked a flight for Sri Lanka on October 17. At the Commissioner's office, she was ushered into CI Vijayan's office. He took her passport and air tickets and asked her to come again.

Indecent proposal
Vijayan then visited Rasheeda in the hotel room on October 13, Vijayan's report had suggested he had met her again only on October 20 when he went to the house she had shifted to. The CBI chargesheet said that Vijayan asked Fauzia, who shared the room with Rasheeda, to step out and then he shut the door behind him. Alone with Rasheeda, Vijayan tried to force himself on her. "Mariyam Rasheeda however spurned sexual advances of Vijayan. Vijayan hurriedly left the room," the chargesheet said.

The insult provoked Vijayan to hold on to her passport and air tickets. It was this vindictive move that caused Rasheeda to stay back, thus allowing Vijayan to officially report that she had overstayed. Not satisfied, he went about digging up more dope on Rasheeda. This was how he found out that she was in contact with D Sasikumaran, a scientist with Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC) of ISRO. He reported this to V R Rajeevan, the then city police commissioner. The spy angle was introduced.

Though the Intelligence Bureau was also alerted, they could not find any proof of foul play. The CBI said the police commissioner then fed media stories of stolen ISRO secrets.

Double agent Rasheeda
On November 13, a day before the expiry of her police custody, Rasheeda was arrested again.

This was based on another Vijayan report that said that "Mariyam Rasheeda and Fauzia Hasan, in collusion with some others both Indians and foreigners, had taken part in the activities against the sovereignty and integrity of India and indulged in activities which would harm the cordial relations that India has with neighbours". The CBI chargesheet termed this "another false report".

According to the CBI, Vijayan's report had not stated the source of the information. He conjured it out of thin air. Yet another Vijayan lie was also busted. The CI had said in his case diary that the second arrest was carried out on the advice of assistant public prosecutor Habib Pillai. Pillai categorically denied this.

"These facts and circumstances have revealed that espionage case was merely registered for getting further police custody of Mariyam Rasheeda though there were no grounds to invoke the stringent provisions of the Official Secrets Act, 1923," the chargesheet said.

Ghost writers
Not just Vijayan, the IB officers, too, were found wanting. The CBI had come upon four interrogation reports filed by the IB, all of them unsigned. An indication that they were not read out to the interrogated and, therefore, could have been made up. The CBI also verified but could not make head or tail out of the statements the arrested people had supposedly made to Kerala police. Proof that Kerala police reports, too, could have been made up.

The Kerala police case diary on November 16, 1994, for instance, states that Rasheeda and Fauzia had admitted that they had contacted Sasikumaran and K Chandrasekhar, a Bangalore-based agent of Russian space agency Glavkosmos, and passed on "valuable information" to foreign countries. However, the CBI noted that the case diary did not say what these "valuable information" were. A bigger reveal of the police's ruthless entrapment scheme lies in the fact that neither Fauzia nor Rasheeda was interrogated that day.

Nambi Narayanan’s tragedy
The statement of Nambi Narayanan, an accused in the ISRO spy case and a scientist with the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre of ISRO, too, could have been a police fiction as one of the unsigned statements was his.

On record, it was taken by Crime Branch inspector S Jogesh. However, Jogesh testified before the CBI that though he had arrested Nambi Narayanan he was not allowed anywhere near the interrogation room. He said it was Special Investigation Team (SIT) head Siby Mathews who had given him the typed unsigned statement of Nambi Narayanan. Jogesh said he just copied out from the sheet provided by Mathews.

"Even though the IB officials and Kerala police were fully aware that there is lack of incriminating evidence of espionage and also that contents of interrogation reports were not grounded, these false information reports were used for false implication and arrest," the chargesheet said.