The Central Bureau of Investigation has named 18 retired police officers in a fresh FIR registered in accordance with the Supreme Court directive to probe the conspiracy behind the alleged framing of Indian Space Research Organisation scientist Nambi Narayanan in an espionage case dating back to 1994.
The FIR registered at a court in Thiruvananthapuram names then circle inspector at Pettah police station S. Vijayan, sub-inspector Thampi Durgadutt, city police commissioner V.R. Rajeev, deputy inspector-general Siby Mathew, deputy superintendent of police K.K. Joshua and deputy director of Intelligence Bureau, R.B. Sreekumar, among the accused.
The CBI filed the FIR based on the Supreme Court order in April. The apex court had considered a report by a three-member panel about the role of police officers who allegedly implicated Narayanan in the case.
Narayanan, his colleague D. Sasikumaran, labour contractor S.K. Sharma and Maldivian women Mariam Rasheeda and Fauzia Hassan were arrested in the case and allegedly tortured by the police.
Kerala police had arrested Narayanan and others under the Officials Secrets Act for “selling” classified information on the space agency’s rocket programme to the two Maldivian “spies” who in turn passed them on to Pakistan’s ISI.
The IB, which stepped in considering the national security angle, even claimed to have seized several kilos of classified information from Narayanan’s home.
The Malayalam print media lapped up the spy scandal and ran juicy stories about the involvement of the accused, including the two Maldivian women.
However, the CBI that investigated the case in 1996 dropped the charges for want of evidence.
The Supreme Court in 1998 acquitted the accused and allowed the scientists to return to work.
The women who eventually returned to Maldives were found to be low-level informers tasked with keeping an eye on India-based Maldivian students campaigning against their President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
The 18 named in the new FIR have been booked under IPC Sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 167 (a public servant framing an incorrect document with intent to cause injury), 195 (fabricating false evidence), 218 (public servant framing incorrect record), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 330 (voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession), 348 (wrongful confinement to extort confession) and 506 (criminal intimidation).
The spy scandal had a political fall guy in then chief minister K. Karunakaran. With faction feud in the Congress at its zenith, his rivals A.K. Antony and Oomen Chandy used the scandal to the hilt by accusing Karunarakan of shielding his trusted lieutenant and deputy inspector-general of police Raman Srivastava whose name figured in the case. In a major political coup, the duo got Karunakaran to step down in 1995.
The apex court later acquitted Srivastava who then went on to become the security adviser to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan during his previous term.
P.C. Chacko, former Congress functionary who recently joined the Nationalist Congress Party, on Thursday said the CBI should question Antony and Chandy in a clear indication that the political angle in the spy scandal had not died down.
“We all know that it was a conspiracy created by factional leaders of the Congress to crucify K. Karunakaran… I feel that these leaders (Antony and Chandy) should be interrogated,” Chacko said.
Sources said a CBI team from Delhi would soon travel to Thiruvananthapuram to collect evidence and record the statements of Narayanan and all the accused.
