Was tortured by Kerala Police to name ISRO scientist Narayanan: Maldivian lady

Thiruvananthapuram: Two days after the Supreme Court ordered a fresh probe to find out if there was a conspiracy in the 27-year-old ISRO spy case, one of the then 'falsely' implicated Maldivian lady on Saturday revealed that the Kerala police brutally tortured her to say the name of ISRO scientist S. Nambi Narayanan.

The espionage case, which had hit the headlines in 1994, pertained to allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on India's space programme to foreign countries by two scientists and four others, including two Maldivian women.

Of the two women, Fousia Hassan presently settled in Sri Lanka told a TV channel that she had never even heard the name of Narayanan.

"I was brutally tortured by the police and when I refused to name him, they said they will arrest my daughter who was a student and rape her. It was after that did I say the name of Narayanan," said Hassan.

She said she was forced to say that Narayanan and another person took dollars from her for sharing the secrets of ISRO.

She also said that just like Narayanan who was given a compensation, she also has to be paid the compensation as she has health issues because of the brutalities she suffered during the interrogation.

The scientist was arrested when the Congress was heading the government in Kerala.

The CBI, in its probe, had held that the then top police officials in Kerala were responsible for Narayanan's illegal arrest.

The case also had its political fallout, with a section in the Congress targeting the then chief minister late K Karunakaran over the issue, that eventually led to his resignation.

Over a period of almost two-and-a-half years, the panel headed by Justice Jain examined the circumstances leading to the arrest.

The 79-year-old former scientist, who was given a clean chit by the CBI, had earlier said that the Kerala police had "fabricated" the case and the technology he was accused to have stolen and sold in the 1994 case did not even exist at that time.

Narayanan had approached the apex court against a Kerala High Court judgement that said no action needed to be taken against former DGP Siby Mathews, who was then heading the SIT probe team, and two retired superintendents of police K K Joshua and S Vijayan, who were later held responsible by the CBI for the scientist's illegal arrest.

The ISRO spy case has now surfaced through the new directive, which came after the apex court appointed a three member committee headed by retired SC judge D K Jain to probe if there was a conspiracy among then police officials to falsely implicate Narayanan and on Thursday the apex court which went through the report ordered the CBI to conduct the new probe and it can treat this report as the preliminary document. The court also asked the CBI to submit its report in three months.

(With inputs from IANS)

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