+++++++++++++How was an ISRO Scientist Framed++++++++++++++++ How UPA 1, CIA, Teesta Setelvad and an IPS officer almost killed the Indian Space program: Meenakshi Lekhi, BJP spokesperson has conducted a sensational press conference today in which she has exposed how the Congress UPA government in 2004 dropped serious charges against an IPS officer for falsely framing Nambi Narayanan one of the brilliant scientists of the Indian Space Research Organization. It is a 19 year old case and i had read a lot about it during those days, specially since it happened in Kerala. For those who came in late, here are the details: As a senior official at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Nambi Narayanan was in-charge of the cryogenics division, at the Liquid Propulsion System Centre (LPSC), located in Trivandrum. Narayanan introduced the liquid fuel rocket technology in India in the early 1970s, when A. P. J. Abdul Kalam’s team was working on solid motors. He foresaw the need for liquid fuelled engines for ISRO’s future civilian space programmes. He and his team first built the successful 600-kg thrust engine in the mid-1970s and thereafter moving on to bigger engines. After working for nearly two decades, with French assistance, Mr Narayanan and his team developed the Vikas engine used by several ISRO rockets including the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle(PSLV) that took Chandrayaan-1 to the moon in 2008. The Vikas engine is used in the second stage of PSLV and as the second and the four strap-on stages of Geo-Synchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV). In 1992, India had signed an agreement with Russia for transfer of technology to develop cryogenic-based fuels.The agreement was signed for Rs 235 crore, when the US and France were offering the same technology for Rs 950 crore and Rs 650 crore respectively. Documents show that US president George H. W. Bush wrote to Russia,raising objections against this agreement and even threatening to blacklist the country from the select-five club. Russia, under Boris Yeltsin, succumbed to the pressure and denied cryogenic technology to India.To bypass this monopoly, India signed a new agreement with Russia to fabricate four cryogenic engines after floating a global tender without a formal transfer of technology. But this did not happen as a spy scandal surfaced. In 1994, Narayanan was falsely charged with leaking vital defense secrets to two alleged Maldivian intelligence officers, Mariam Rasheeda and Fauzia Hassan. Defense officials said the secrets pertained to highly confidential flight test data from experiments with rocket and satellite launches. Nambi Narayanan, was among two scientists (the other being D Sasikumaran) that were accused of selling ISRO secrets for millions. However, his house seemed nothing out of the ordinary and did not show signs of the corrupt gains he was accused of.Narayanan was arrested and spent 50 days in jail. He says that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials who interrogated him wanted him to make false accusations against the top brass of ISRO. He alleges that two IB officials led by RB Sreekumar had asked him to implicate A E Muthunayakom, his boss and then Director of the Liquid Propulsion System Centre (LPSC). When he refused to comply, he was tortured until he collapsed and was hospitalised. In 1994, he was falsely charged with espionage and arrested. The charges against him were dismissed by the CBI in 1996, and the Supreme Court declared him not guilty in 1998. The person who ran this case was Mr RB Sreekumar, IPS was the then Deputy Director, SIB, Kerala Police. Acting under orders from someone above, Sreekumar not only conducted illegal enquiry and also physically tortured Mr Narayanan. Finally after spending two months in jail, Mr Narayanan was released . In May 1996, the charges were dismissed as phony by the Central Bureau of Investigation. They were also dismissed by the Supreme Court of India in April 1998. In September 1999, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) passed strictures against the government of Kerala for having damaged Narayanan’s distinguished career in space research along with the physical and mental torture to which he and his family were subjected. After the dismissal of charges against them, the two scientists, Sasikumar and Narayanan were transferred out of Thiruvananthapuram and were given desk jobs. Subsequently, Mr RB Sreekumar was served with charge sheet for foisting a false case against Mr Narayanan and nine sections of the IPC were mentioned in the chargesheet misusing his official position. At that point in time, K Karunakaran was the Chief Minister of Kerala. He got orders from Delhi to drop the charges against Mr Sreekumar, but Karunakaran refused. Surprisingly, within a month after his refusal to co-operate and save the IPS officer, Chief Minister K Karunakaran was removed and AK Antony appointed as the Chief Minister. And soon, the charges against Mr Sreekumar was dropped on oral orders (God knows whose oral orders), and there was no written record of the same as required in enquiry cases. In a recently released taped conversation with Rais Khan Pathan one of Teesta Setelvad’s aides, Sreekumar admits that Teesta had influenced the UPA government in Delhi and helped in getting the case against him dropped. In a recent book, Russia In Space: A Failed Frontier, written by former BBC space writer Brian Harvey, it was mentioned that the ISRO Spying case was an attempt by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to derail Indias space programme, especially to stall acquisition of sophisticated cryogenic engine technology for energy efficient rockets from Russia. According to Harvey, Indias attempts to buy the technology-ignoring US opposition-was the reason behind the cooked-up spy case. The US government had by then extended to sanctions against ISRO and Glavkosmos, the Russian space firm supplying the technology. After Russia backed out, it took years for ISRO to develop it indigenously. The scandal set ISRO back by decades and even now we are struggling to indigenously develop Cryogenic engines. Cut to 2002, and Sreekumar was additional DGP of Gujarat during Godhra Incident and was Intelligence DGP during Gujarat communal violence 2002. His role comes into the focus when after his retirement he teamed up with the same Teesta Setelvad to repay the debt in the ISRO Spying case. A fact he admits in a secretaly recorded conversation. He made numerous allegations against Shri Modi all of which were rejected by the Special Investigation Team and later the Supreme Court. In 2001, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) ordered the Kerala State Government to pay him a compensation of INR 1 crore. Mr Nayarnan retired in 2001 and the Kerala High Court ordered an interim compensation amount of Rs 10 lakhs to be paid to Nambi Narayanan based on an appeal from NHRC India in September 2012. On November 8, 2012 it is reported that Kerala Government still not complied Kerala High Court order to pay compensation Rs 10 lakhs to Mr Narayanan. On October 3, 2012, The Hindu reported that Kerala Government has dropped charges against police officials who were alleged to have falsely implicated Nambi Narayanan in the espionage case on the grounds that over 15 years had passed since the case was initiated. The top officer involved in the case, Siby Mathews is currently the Chief Information Commissioner in Kerala. It was a well known fact that Teesta Setelvad played a crucial role in the so called ISRO spying case and Sreekumar was used by her in creating a false case against senior ISRO scientists who were working on the Cryogenic engine. What was the link between Teesta and the ISRO case? Who were the other players in UPA who were colluding with CIA in creating a false case against ISRO? Why was Mr Naryanan targetted and who was behind this false case? Who ordered the dropping of charges against Sreekumar? Who ordered the change of Chief Minister in Kerala at that point in time? What was the role of Sreekumar and Teesta in the Gujarat riots? If he could foist a false case against ISRO, he could have done a lot during the riots. We need answers. the Nation needs to know.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 10:12:04 +0000
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