Once he was told what the charges were, Narayanan says he could not get over the ludicrousness of it all. Narayanan’s questioning was soon taken over by the Intelligence Bureau. On November 30, Nambi Narayanan, then the director of the cryogenic engine project at ISRO, was also taken away. They were charged with conspiring and selling drawings of ISRO’s Vikas engine and cryogenic technology to Pakistan. They went on to arrest Sasikumaran, Rashida’s friend and Maldivian national Fouziyya Hassan, and two Bangalore-based businessmen. When they found the number of ISRO scientist D Sasikumaran in her diary, the cops got suspicious. The previous month, the Kerala Police had arrested a Maldivian woman, Mariam Rashida for overstaying without a visa. “It was as if there had been a death in the house, with relatives dropping by and looking at each other, not knowing what to say,” he says with a small chuckle, pleased with the simile. But my wife slipped into depression and stopped talking,” says the 77-year-old, occasionally stroking his flowing white beard. My children were agitated and would fight back. “People would come to our house and burn my effigy, call me names, shout slogans. Narayanan, then a senior scientist who had worked under the likes of the legendary Vikram Sarabhai, sounds matter-of-fact now. For a self-respecting person, and a former government servant, this would mean that the slur on his reputation is taken off the record.” But, he adds, it can’t help the hurt.Īs Salve says, the hurt is not so easily erased, even after the passage of years. “It was a horrible case, as the judgment explains. Former solicitor general Harish Salve, who has appeared for Narayanan earlier, says he has not seen a similar observation in his four decades at the bar. While the court has clarified it would not press for criminal proceedings against the investigating officers, its remarks on compensation hold out hope for Narayanan and other like him victimised by the state machinery. The final verdict is awaited, with hearing likely to renew once the courts reopen after summer. The Supreme Court appeal is the last leg of the former ISRO scientist’s quest to hold those who arrested him accountable. In 1998, the apex court granted him compensation of Rs 1 lakh, following which he had approached the National Human Rights Commission, which ordered the state to pay Rs 10 lakh in 2001, though it was another decade before the state complied with the order. Once the courts had accepted the CBI’s closure report, Narayanan filed a case for action against the officers who had arrested him. The court is hearing Narayanan’s appeal for criminal proceedings against the Kerala Police and Intelligence Bureau, which had arrested him on charges of espionage in late 1994, charges that were found to be false by the CBI when it took over the investigation.
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