According to officials, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has submitted a chargesheet against two former DGPs, Siby Mathews from Kerala and R B Sreekumar from Gujarat, along with three other retired police officials. This action pertains to their alleged involvement in framing space scientist Nambi Narayanan in the 1994 ISRO espionage case.
The controversy started in October 1994 when Kerala police arrested Maldivian citizen Rasheeda in Thiruvananthapuram, accusing her of trying to sell confidential ISRO rocket engine drawings to Pakistan.
The probe soon expanded, resulting in the arrests of Nambi Narayanan, then director of ISRO’s cryogenic project, ISRO deputy director D Sasikumaran, and Rasheeda’s Maldivian friend Fousiya Hasan.
Nambi Narayanan was arrested and subjected to severe physical and mental torture during the interrogation by Kerala police and IB officers. This ordeal lasted 50 days, severely damaging his reputation and career. However, a later CBI investigation found these allegations to be baseless.
In September 2018, the Supreme Court termed the police action against Nambi Narayanan as “psychopathological treatment,” stating that 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.”
On April 15, 2021, the apex court ordered that the report of a high-level committee on the role of erring police officials in the 1994 espionage case involving ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan be given to the Central Bureau of Investigation.
After registering a case in 2021 following the Supreme Court’s directions, the CBI has filed its chargesheet against then Deputy Inspector General of Police Mathews, who headed the Special Investigation Team (SIT) that probed the case, Sreekumar, who was the Deputy Director in the Intelligence Bureau, PS Jayaprakash, then posted in the SIB-Kerala, then Deputy Superintendent of Police K K Joshua and inspector S Vijayan.
The CBI has 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.
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