ISRO Spy Case 1994: Victim Fausia Hassan dies in Colombo

Thiruvananthapuram: Maldivian citizen Fusia Hassan, who was in news during the height of the ISRO espionage case here in 1994, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Colombo, where she was undergoing treatment. Though a Maldivian citizen, she lived in Colombo and was in news recently after Hassan and Mariam Rashida, another Maldivian national, who was also an accused in the espionage case, approached the Supreme Court through the CBI and 2 crore each as compensation was sought. Falsely implicated in the case.

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The ISRO espionage case came to light in 1994 when S Nambi Narayanan, a top scientist in the ISRO unit here, was arrested along with other senior space agency officials Hassan, Rashida and a businessman on charges of espionage.

In September 2021, the CBI registered an FIR in the Thiruvananthapuram Chief Judicial Magistrate’s Court against 18 people, all of whom had investigated the case and included top officials of the Kerala Police and IB, who were charged with conspiracy and documents. construction was alleged.

When the top court decided to reopen the case, it asked all the accused and witnesses to inform the new CBI investigation team if they had anything to say. Incidentally, were it not for the Covid lockdown norms, the CBI team had to travel to Colombo to collect statements from Hassan and then Rashida.

Things changed for Narayanan when the Supreme Court appointed a three-member committee, headed by retired Justice DK Jain, to probe whether there was a conspiracy among the then police officers to falsely implicate Narayanan. The CBI freed Narayanan in 1995 and since then he has been fighting a legal battle against Mathew, S Vijayan and Joshua who investigated the case and falsely implicated them.

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Narayanan has now received compensation of Rs 1.9 crore from various agencies including the Kerala government, which paid him Rs 1.3 crore in 2020 and later in 2018 Rs 50 lakh as directed by the Supreme Court and Rs 10 lakh as ordered by the National Human Rights Commission. . Rights Commission. The compensation was because the former ISRO scientist had to endure wrongful imprisonment, malicious prosecution and humiliation.

Now after Hassan dies, the fate of the petition remains to be seen. He has demanded that compensation be recovered from the 18 officers, whose names have now been registered in the FIR. Rashida told the then Investigating Officer S. Another petition has been filed for registration of a separate case against Vijayan, who had allegedly misbehaved with her.