Falsely accused in the ISRO case as a spy, Sudhir Kumar Sharma passed away in the wee hours of Thursday, 1 November, battling stage-4 oesophagus cancer.
Sharma, falsely accused with scientist S Nambi Narayanan in the ISRO espionage case by the Intelligence Bureau (IB) in 1994, was awaiting compensation for damage caused to his reputation for nearly 20 years now.
After Supreme Court directed Kerala government to compensate Thiruvananthapuram-based scientist Narayanan with Rs 50 lakh, Sharma grew hopeful of getting his compensation.
Survived by his wife and two daughters, Sharma had disclosed details of enduring torture in police custody.
"I was called names, beaten up, tortured and branded for something I had no idea about," Sharma had told The Times of India, while narrating his ordeal of being labelled as a traitor in what is considered country's biggest scandal in the 1990s.
Then a 34-year-old, Sharma was arrested in November 1994 and released after 50 days on bail but, along with his family, was humiliated and socially ostracised.
According to a report by The Times of India, Sharma was called to give his statement in December 1994 but was arrested by Kerala Police and Intelligence Bureau. Sharma was beaten up, kicked, denied medicine (diabetic) and food and not even allowed to sit on the floor for three days, the report mentioned.
My daughters were thrown out from the school. My daughters were humiliated. They were told, “You people are agents, deshdrohis” (anti-nationals). The teachers also said hurtful things.Sudhir Kumar Sharma to NDTV
What Was the ‘ISRO Espionage’ Case?
On 20 October 1994, Mariam Rasheeda, a Maldivian national working with the Maldives Police department’s intelligence wing was taken into custody in Thiruvananthapuram, on charges of overstaying without valid documents. It was also found that she had had telephonic exchanges with an ISRO scientist, D Sasikumar.
Based on this, a case under the Official Secrets Act was registered against D Sasikumar for ‘unauthorised contact with a foreign national’, although his arrest took place later. Soon after, Rasheeda’s Maldivian friend Fausia Hassan was also taken into custody. The IB unit in Kerala became actively involved in the case on suspicions that ‘material relevant to national security had been leaked’.
On 15 November 1994, a Special Investigative Team (SIT) led by Siby Mathews, who was then a DIG with the Kerala Police, took over the case.
At the time, based on Rasheeda and Hassan’s statements, others including scientist Sasikumar, Indian representative of Glavkosmos, Chandrashekaran, Bangalore-based businessman SK Sharma, and Nambi Narayanan were arrested.
(With inputs from The Times of India and NDTV)
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)