The spy scandal which resulted in the unceremonious exit of two brilliant space scientists from Indian Space Research Organisation between 1994 and 1996 took a new turn with a senior investigating official of the Central Bureau of Investigation revealing to The Pioneer that no probe was held either by the Union or State Governments into the international conspiracy angle behind the case.
“The entire ISRO spy scam was a cock and bull story conceived by certain people with ulterior motives. It was foisted and hoisted by someone in the Kerala Police with the active connivance of the Intelligence Bureau. Our investigation proved that there was no spy case and no technology was handed over to ISI moles as made out by the IB,” said the highly-decorated official.
The official who did not want his name to be quoted said the union and state governments should have ordered a probe into the conspiracy angle behind the ISRO spy case. “We had suspicions about the role of some IB officials including RB Sreekumar in the whole episode. But our brief was to find out whether any spying has taken place or not. Our investigation found that both Nambi Narayanan and Sasi Kumar were innocents. We are yet to understand the logic behind Sreekumar and his colleagues interrogating and torturing Nambi Narayana and Sasi Kumar,” the official said. He also said that the CBI had asked for a probe into the actions of certain IB officials.
KK Ramachandran, a two-time minister in the UDF government of Kerala has approached the Kerala High Court with a request to ask the union government to investigate the international conspiracy behind the ISRO spy case. “Though the Court has issued notices to the union and state governments, they have not yet responded ,” Ramachandran told this newspaper. He said his mission is to get the name of K Karunakaran, his mentor, cleared. Interestingly, Ramachandran has filed the case through P Sreedharan Pillai, senior advocate and former president of Kerala BJP.
R B Sreekumar, the former Gujarat Police additional director general who was the station in charge of the Intelligence Bureau at Thiruvananthapuram during the period of the spy scam is in for trouble as more and more revelations are coming out by the day about his dubious role in keeping Indian scientists away from research in cryogenic engine programme.
Nambi Narayanan himself has sent a letter to the union ministry of home affairs seeking a detailed probe into the conspiracy angle played by the IB and local Kerala Police in the episode. “Although the case was registered by the Kerala Police, the investigation was took over by the IB. At that relevant point of time Sreekumar was the Dy Director,IB, and was in charge of the investigation of the ISRO espionage case. Sreekumar and his team interrogated all the four persons held by the police,” Nambi Narayanan said in his recent representation to the secretary, ministry of home affairs.
Narayanan pointed out that the CBI which subsequently investigated the case found that it was a false and fabricated case. The CBI had asked the government to take stern departmental action against the “delinquent IB officials including Sreekumar”.
He also pointed out that all actions of Sreekumar were high handed in nature and with ulterior motive. According to Nambi Narayanan, though the union ministry of home affairs had charge sheeted Sreekumar on nine serious counts on 17-11-1999, no action was taken and all the charges were dropped due to external pressure. The scientist has demanded the MHA to revoke the earlier orders and initiate fresh probe against Sreekumar and others in the IB.
In a curious turn of events, Cherian Philip, a former Congress leader and the then conscience keeper of union defence minister A K Antony and Oommen Chandi (the present chief minister) told The Pioneer that he himself was one of the participants in the discussions held to tarnish the name of K Karunakaran , the then chief minister, by blowing out of proportion the ISRO spy scandal.
“Chandi wanted to oust Karunakaran from the chief minister’s chair. The ISRO spy case turned out to be a manna from the heaven as the name of an Inspector General of Police, who was close to Karunakaran too figured in the case,” said Philip. He said the conspiracies took place in the rented house of M I Shanawaz, MP, who had quit the Karunakaran faction and joined the Antony-Chandi duo.
Rattan Sehgal, the then second-in-command in the IB, had a major role in the ISRO spy case. Sehgal had to quit IB in disgrace following disclosures that it was he who provided the CIA with the plans of the Indian government to go for nuclear tests in the 1990s. R K Malkani, the former governor of Goa, had mentioned in “Political Mysteries” a book authored by him about the role of Sehgal in passing on sensitive details about India’s nuclear energy programmes to the CIA.
The role of CIA in snooping at India’s space and nuclear programmes have been further clearly brought out by Edward Snowden, a US whistle blower. According to Snowden the National Security Agency of the USA has collected 6.3 billion pieces of information about India’s nuclear and space programmes.
Brian Harvey, the BBC journalist in his book “Russia in Space, a Failed Frontier” has alo revealed the CIA’s role in sabotaging ISRO’s cryogenic engine programme. The coterie of space faring nations led by the US feared that if India succeeds in developing a cryogenic engine, it would eat into their monopoly of international launch business , estimated to be worth $400 billion per year.