On September 14, S.K. Sharma known as “the Bengaluru-based labour contractor” in the ISRO espionage case decided to come out of his self-imposed isolation, after the recent Supreme Court order on scientist Nambi Narayanan.
In 1998, after being acquitted of the charges (which the Supreme Court recently called a “criminal frame-up”), Mr. Sharma approached the City Civil Court seeking compensation of ₹55 lakh for the torture he had to undergo.
The case has seen little progress as Kerala authorities resorted to appeals to press for its rejection. Now, the Supreme court order has given fresh hope to the 62-year-old, who has run out of options to treat his Stage IV cancer. As he narrates a tale of emotional, financial and physical pain, his stoic countenance breaks for a moment as he thinks of his wife and three daughters. “I want to clear my name... I want to leave something financially for my family,” he says.
Dragged into the net
It was an act of altruism that drew Mr. Sharma and his close friend Mr. Chandrashekar, who was then a liaison agent for Russian Space agency Glavcosmos, into the web spun by Kerala police. “One day, Chandrashekar informed me that a Maldivian woman he met at Trivandrum Airport had been duped by an agent who took ₹1 lakh promising admission into a private Bengaluru school. I knew those who ran the school and offered to help,” says Mr. Sharma.
In October 1994, the Maldivian was arrested for overstaying her visa, and an espionage racket was in focus. Mr. Narayanan and Mr. Chandrashekhar were arrested and by November, the Kerala police came knocking on his door in Bengaluru.“I was detained for two days during which they kept asking me about ISRO. I didn’t even know the full form of ISRO then,” he says in a voice showing the strain of nearly 45 rounds of radiation therapy in three years. The police told him to come to Thiruvananthapuram to make a formal statement.
Mr. Sharma went to Thiruvananthapuran, where he was charged on December 1 for leaking information to Pakistan. “They made me stand for three days. They would ensure I couldn’t sit or sleep. There was no food. Even the medicines I was taking for diabetes were not given,” he says. The aim was to get him to “become an approver” and implicate his friend, Mr. Chandrashekhar, who was being tortured.
Things took a different turn on December 4 when the CBI took over the case. Yet, as the cases remained, he and the others spent three months in jail. His wife, Kiran, who was then tending to their two-year-old third daughter, went from Bengaluru to Kochi nearly 25 times. Mr. Sharma’s father, who was an army officer, died around this time, and his mother-in-law slipped into a coma.
ISI links story
The story of his involvement as a “multi-millionaire business magnate with deep ISI links” had caught on even in jail. “One day, a man was following me around in jail. I asked him what he wanted. He said that the newspapers had said that Pakistan was sending a helicopter to rescue me and he wanted to come along,” he says. In 1996, the CBI filed a report saying the case had been fabricated and two years later, the courts acquitted them. But his reputation was lost. Mr. Sharma talks about attending court hearings in disguise, to escape violent mobs.
Now, after spending lakhs to treat his cancer, Mr. Sharma says he needs to win the defamation suit to ensure financial security.
The Kerala government sought its rejection but the city civil court turned down their plea. The appeals reached the Supreme court. “Three years ago, the Supreme Court upheld the civil court order and ordered a rehearing. But the Kerala authorities are delaying hearings,” says Tomy Sebastian, senior advocate representing him.
