The infamous ISRO spy case of 1994 is back in the news with former DGP T.P. Senkumar, in his service story released on Thursday, indicating that the mystery is yet to be unravelled fully.
In Ente Police Jeevitham (My Police Life) released by poet Sugathakumari, Mr. Senkumar says he can view the ISRO spy case “only as an investigation where the truth remains shrouded”. It is puzzling how the spy case was investigated in such a bizarre manner, he writes.
‘‘I cannot say whether the scientists leaked secrets in the ISRO spy case. But there is one thing. How did certain scientists and police officers come to have frequent contact with Mariyam Rasheeda and Fousia (Hassan) who were from the Maldives?’’ he writes.
He accuses Nambi Narayanan, the spy case accused who was later acquitted, of uttering falsehoods about the case. Among other things, Mr. Narayanan should explain his decision to opt for voluntary retirement in 1994 before he was listed as an accused in this case, demands Mr. Senkumar. Despite his current image as victim, he should remember that the truth will ultimately emerge, Mr Senkumar writes.
Mr. Senkumar says that he himself was unnecessarily dragged into the ISRO spy case. He had no connection with the case either in 1994 when it broke out or in 1995. According to the former DGP, the then Chief Minister E.K. Nayanar had assigned him the job of re-investigating the case in 1996 under strange circumstances.
Nayanar told him that the CBI had written off the case as part of protecting someone. The State government had decided that the State police should continue the investigation, which, Mr. Senkumar says, was highly irregular.
Again, the ISRO case itself would not have happened had there been an IPS officers' quarters available for the then Deputy Commissioner of Police, Rishiraj Singh, writes Mr. Senkumar. At the time, all the four quarters in the city were occupied, and a search began for one for Mr Singh. An SP’s salary was scarcely anything to boast of in those days. Soon, attention fell on Maldivian nationals who were taking big houses at high rents.
‘‘That is how an investigation began into what so many Maldivians were doing in Thiruvananthapuram,’’ he writes.
Writer George Onakkoor received the first copy of the book. Mr. Senkumar, in his reply, said more revelations would be forthcoming in the subsequent edition. Former Chief Secretaries C.P. Nair and S.M. Vijayanand and former DGP Sibi Mathews were present.
