It is alarming that the previous governments did little to give boost to our country’s space programmes and the scientists who worked at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). Startling revelations came to the fore by which the nation came to know how some of the most talented scientists of India had to face the wrath of the administration and how it worked to keep our country backward in the field of space.
A look into the life of those who were stalwarts but were wrongly fabricated
Some of the Indian scientists and people who were wrongly implicated in false cases are alive and saw this glorious day when India created history as it successfully accomplished Chandryaan 3 mission. There are some who are living in oblivious while others are no more in this world.
Nambi Narayanan: The man who was implicated in the controversial espionage case
Nambi Narayanan was then head of the cryogenics division in ISRO. In the 1970s, it was Narayanan who had introduced liquid fuel rocket technology to India, which he believed was a necessity in furthering ISRO’s future civilian space programmes. Narayanan is particularly known for his contributions to the SRO, where he was involved in the development of the Vikas engine, which powered the first Indian satellite, Aryabhata, into space in 1975.
Two years before the case was concocted against him, ISRO had signed an agreement with Russia for the transfer of technology for developing cryogenic-based fuel. However, the agreement was severely opposed by America because it was clashing with their trade interests.
False charges levelled against Nambi Narayanan
Nambi Narayanan became widely known due to a controversial espionage case in the 1990s, which falsely accused him of being involved in leaking sensitive information to foreign agents. He was arrested in 1994 and spent about 50 days in custody, facing allegations of espionage and selling sensitive rocket technology to foreign countries. He is noted to have been tortured by the IB officials and he refused to comply till he ultimately collapsed and was hospitalised. The charges against him were eventually found to be baseless, and he was cleared of all charges by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 1996.
Nambi Narayan exposes the real motive of his arrest in his book
Narayanan in his recent book “Ready to fire: How India and I survived the ISRO spy case”, claimed that when the investigation of the case passed on to the hands of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), they were acting in collaboration with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Their real target was ISRO and its efforts at building efficient rocket technology in India. In order to meet with their objective, they decided to fabricate a story of espionage in which Narayanan was a chief character, who was charged with giving out “drawings and documents” to Pakistan.
The handling of the Nambi Narayanan case brought to light issues of wrongful arrest, fabrication of evidence, and the impact of political and bureaucratic interference on the Indian scientific community. The case also revealed the need for reforms in the investigative and judicial processes to prevent such miscarriages of justice.
After the dismissal of the charges though, he and his colleague Sasikumar, who was also arrested in the case, were transferred out of Thiruvananthapuram and given desk jobs. In the subsequent years he has continued to fight a legal battle for compensation for the mental and physical torture he had to undergo, and has also been seeking the arrest of officers who tortured him.
The case took a toll on Narayanan’s personal and professional life, and he later filed a lawsuit against the Indian Government for the damages he suffered due to the false accusations. In 2018, the Supreme Court of India ruled in his favour and awarded him compensation.
It was in March 2019 that Nambi Narayan was given the Padma Bhushan which is India’s third highest civilian award.
D Sasikumaran: Another victim of fake case
D Sasikumaran was the deputy director of the cryogenic technology division of ISRO and was arrested along with Narayanan in the fake case. He was in charge of the transfer of cryogenic technology transfer from Russia. Sasikumaran has been living in Thiruvananthapuram since his retirement in 1999. Unlike Narayanan though, he has not been seeking for a compensation. However, he has opened up about the fact that he would lay bare the truth about the fake case before a committee set up by the Supreme Court to investigate the matter.
D Chandrasekhar: Did not remain alive to see justice happening to him
Chandrasekhar was the Russian Space Agency Glavkosmos’ India representative and had been working there since 1992. He too was arrested in the false spy case along with Narayanan and Sasikumaran. D Chandrasekhar passed away just hours before the Supreme Court announced the Rs 50 lakh compensation to Narayanan.
The last two decades of his life, Chandrasekhar had been Vidyaranyapura in north Bengaluru as a recluse after the torture he underwent under trial by the Kerala Police and the IB. Reportedly, though the case had completely ruined his career and reputation, he did not pursue and investigation into it since his wife was working in central government establishment and after the case their family income was dependent on her job.
S K Sharma : Victim of spy espionage, alive but terminally ill
S K Sharma was a labour contractor who was the seventh accused in the false spy case. Currently, he stays in Bangalore and is in a terminally ill condition since 2018.
Meanwhile, mariam Rasheeda was a Maldivian national who was booked by the Kerala Police for a rather routine crime of overstaying in India after the expiry of her visa. Rasheeda had contacted the city police commissioner’s office for an extension of her visa. When she went to the office for a follow-up meeting on the issue, she came in contact with S Vijayan, the inspector dealing with foreigners. Reportedly, Vijayan made sexual overtures to Rasheeda which the latter turned down and threatened to report him to a senior police official, Raman Srivastava, whom she had met in her previous meeting at the office.
Raman Srivastava was the senior police official with whom Rasheeda met when she went to the office the first time for the extension of her visa. Srivastava was later accused as the mastermind behind the espionage charges. Incidentally, Srivastava was also detested by the then DIG, Siby Mathews, who considered him to be an obstacle in his way to a promotion. Faced with the threat held out by Rasheeda, Mathews and Vijayan decided to frame together the Maldivian national and Srivastava in a concocted case. It is to be noted that Srivastava was also a close aide of then chief minister K. Karunakaran, who was disliked by a certain section of the Congress party in Kerala. His involvement in the case had served as cause for putting pressure of Karunakaran, who was finally forced to quit in March 1995.
Fauzia Hassan was the other Maldivian national who was accused in the case. She along with Rasheeda were fabricated to be the links that would pass on the defence information to Pakistan. They were also shown to be funded by Maldivian banker. In an interview with the Malayalam daily Malayala Manorama, Hassan claimed that she was forced to accept all the allegations against her when the investigators brought her 14-year old daughter before her and threatened to rape her.
Thus, we see that how to fullsil the sinister motive, our scientists were targetted in a planned way and how we were stopped from becoming a leader in the space and science world world long time ago.
