The CBI on Wednesday opposed the bail pleas of two retired Kerala police officers S Vijayan and Thampi S Durga Dutt who were a part of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) and were involved in the arrest of former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan in a 1994 espionage case. They falsely implicated him in a “concocted case” which led to the delay in the development of India’s cryogenic technology.
The CBI informed the Kerala High Court that the offences against the two accused were serious as they both “played an active role and concocted an espionage case in pursuance of the conspiracy with the other accused in the FIR (registered by CBI) and other unknown persons”. The false allegation on Nambi Narayanan had a big impact on the development of cryogenic technology which makes the gravity of the crime even more severe.
The panel studied the developments regarding the case for almost two and a half years, which led to the arrest of Narayanan. At the same time, ISRO Deputy Director D Sasikumaran and Fousiya Hasan, a Maldivian friend of Rasheeda also got arrested. However, the court time and again observed the actions initiated against the ISRO scientist to be a “psycho-pathological treatment”.
The CBI, in its probe back then, had held 16 other top police officials including Intelligence Bureau (IB) officers in Kerala who were responsible for Narayanan’s illegal arrest. They were also accused of various offences like, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping and fabrication of evidence, under the Indian Penal Code, The case also had a political fallout, with a section of Congress leaders targeting the then Chief Minister late K Karunakaran over the issue, that eventually led to his resignation. CBI has contended that it has reason to believe that once interim bails are granted to them, they will not cooperate with the probe and “will derail the pace of the investigation,” as reported by The Economic Times.
This falls in line with the theory of international involvement in the same. The conspiracy theory dates back to the 1990s when India was looking to get the Cryogenic technology from the Russian Space Agency, Glavkosmos, at $250 million, which would have played an important role in missions involving heavy satellites going deeper into space. Joe Biden turned out to be the biggest saboteur of India’s ambitious space programme when he had called the Indo-Russia agreement for the supply of two cryogenic engines to India ‘dangerous’.
As reported by TFI, Biden had then said, “I am confident that the Russian leaders will recognize the wisdom of stopping this sale once they see the risk of losing their economic aid.” He had added, “This is no minor sale; this is dangerous.” The fact remains that the Biden-led attempt to deny Cryogenics to India had no missile angle. It was sheer geopolitical manipulation on the part of the Democrats at the time. Joe Biden tried sabotaging the space programme of a democratic nation like India, only because he wanted to lead pro-Pakistan sentiments within the US administration at that time.
Ultimately, the US allowed Moscow to supply seven Cryogenic engines to India. But no technology transfer was allowed thereby impairing India’s ambitious space mission. India faced hurdles in developing the Cryogenic technology that involves handling fuel at low temperatures to give the extra thrust required for a rocket to carry heavy satellites into longer distances. Joe Biden’s 1992 sabotage, thus, inflicted massive damage upon India and pushed back India’s space programme by several years if not decades because of the same.
The gravity and intensity of this crime should not be undermined as scientists are the strongest pillars of a nation. Officials responsible for causing such a harrowing effect by blaming a scientist on baseless grounds and delaying India’s cryo-tech development must face legal consequences. By revealing its findings to the Kerala High Court, the CBI already seems to be on its way to prove that the sacking of Nambi Narayanan was indeed an international conspiracy, which was possibly led by US President Joe Biden.