IB pressured police to arrest former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan in spy case, says Kerala ex-DGP

Former Kerala Director General of Police Siby Mathews has claimed that Intelligence Bureau officials pressured him and other senior state police officials to arrest ex-Indian Space Research Organisation scientist Nambi Narayanan in a 1994 espionage case, reported The Indian Express on Wednesday.

Mathews made the claims in his bail application in a case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation against him and 17 other police and Intelligence Bureau officials on charges of framing Narayan in the spy case. A district sessions court in Thiruvananthapuram is expected to take up the bail application on Wednesday.

The CBI had begun its investigation in the wrongful arrest of Narayan and others after a Supreme Court order in April on the basis of a report filed by a three-member committee led by retired judge DK Jain. The court had tasked Jain to investigate the officials responsible in the case because of which the prominent space scientist was falsely implicated.

In his application, Mathews, who was heading the Special Investigation Team investigating the espionage case, claimed that the Thiruvananthapuram city police chief at that time had said that the case was registered as per the instructions of the central agencies. One Mariyam Rasheeda, a resident of Maldives, was arrested based on the directions of then…

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