Intelligence Bureau Pressured Senior Cops To Arrest Nambi Narayanan: Kerala Ex-DGP

Kerala: Former Kerala DGP Siby Mathews, who is the fourth accused in the CBI case pertaining to the 1994 ISRO spy case, claims that Intelligence Bureau (IB) officers urged top state police officials to arrest ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan, the then IG Raman Srivastava, and others, claiming that "the matter is related to security of the nation and positions of such persons shall not be a hindrance for stern actions against them".

Last month, the CBI charged Mathews and 17 other police and IB personnel with framing Nambi Narayanan in the espionage case, and Mathews claimed this in his bail application. On Wednesday, the bail application will be considered at the district sessions court.

The Supreme Court had already instructed the CBI to examine officers of the state police and central agencies who investigated the ISRO spy case, based on a committee report.

Officials from the central intelligence wing (IB) and RAW had given information to Kerala police about the suspicious behaviour of the accused people in the spy case, according to Mathews, who led the state police team that first investigated the spy case.

"The then Thiruvananthapuram city police commissioner had reported the case was registered as per the instructions of the central agencies and Mariyam Rasheeda was arrested based on the instructions of R B Sreekumar, who was the then deputy director of the IB. It was also stated in that report that Rasheeda and Fousiya Hassan had connections with one senior ISRO scientist. When Fousiya was questioned, there revealed a spy network linking Colombo, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram and Maldives," he said.

In response to the accusation of custody torture, Mathews stated that Nambi never made such an allegation when he was repeatedly brought before the court.

Because the inquiry was stretched over many states and numerous federal government organisations, Mathews claimed he advised the then-state police chief to suggest to the Kerala government that the investigation be entrusted to the CBI.

"If there was any conspiracy or bad faith on the part of the petitioner, he ought not to have recommended the transfer of the probe to another agency…. There is no doubt that the petitioner was taking all actions in respect of the cases in absolute faith and he is entitled to all protections under Section 64 (3) of the Kerala Police Act,’’ his bail application said.

He said that the charges of criminal conspiracy levelled against him were unfounded because he was entrusted with the investigation after filing the complaint and arresting Mariyam Rasheeda.

"Sharing information related to a crime with the central agencies and allowing them to question the accused would not constitute any criminal conspiracy. The information furnished by the officials of the central agencies are presumed to be genuine unless the same are found negative subsequently by cognitive evidence," he said.