The Rediff Special/Venu Menon
Sinner or sinned against? The tangled tale of Mariam Rasheeda
A year after the court set her free, Mariam Rasheeda, a Maldives national, still languishes in a Kerala prison. She was arrested
two and a half years ago for overstaying and on suspicion of being
a spy.
Her friend, Fouzia Hassan, is also in jail for suspected espionage. The charge could not be proved and the court let off
the two women. But they remained in prison in view of other suits
pending against them. Eventually, Fouzia was cleared of all charges
and released, only to be re-arrested under the National Security
Act. Mariam, who faces defamation charges, remains in custody.
She has not be been able to raise the Rs 20,000 necessary for
bail.
The extended incarceration of the two women is a sequel to an
executive order passed by the Kerala government to re-investigate
what has come to be known as the ISRO spy scandal involving the
two Maldives women and four Indian nationals, two of them senior
scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation at Thiruvananthapuram.
The Kerala government had entrusted the investigation to the CBI.
The agency contradicted the findings of the Kerala police and
rejected the espionage charge as false and baseless. The chief
judicial magistrate's court at Ernakulam discharged the case on
the basis of the CBI report. The Kerala government then issued
an executive order to re-investigate the case, which was ratified
by the chief judicial magistrate of Thiruvananthapuram. The six
accused challenged the government order in the Supreme
Court.
The fate of the two Maldivian nationals and four others will be
decided by the Supreme Court this week when
the case comes up for final hearing. The apex court has stayed
the operation of the state government's executive order.
It all began when Mariam Rasheeda reported to the Foreigners Registration
Office, attached to the Thiruvananthapuram city police commissionerate,
on October 8, 1994 to extend her stay in India. Maldives nationals
are exempted from visa regulations for a period of 90 days from
the date of arrival, after which they must obtain official sanction
to stay on. Mariam's last date was October 17, 1994. She had confirmed
air tickets to fly on that date, but the plague scare had forced
the airlines to cancel their flights.
Inspector Vijayan, who manned the FRO cell, took possession of
Mariam's passport and air tickets. Two days later, the officer dropped
in at room 205 of Hotel Samrat where Mariam was staying with her
friend Fouzia. Mariam claims the policeman made sexual advances
which she rebuffed. On October 20 she was summoned to the commissioneate
and arrested on arrival. She was charged with violating Rule 7
of the Foreigners Order and Section 14 of the Foreigners Act and
a case was registered at the Vanchiyoor police station.
On March
13, 1994, another case was registered for alleged espionage activity.
Included as co-accused were Fouzia, ISRO scientists Sasikumar
and Nambi Narayanan, Bangalore-based businessman S S Sharma and
Russian space agency Glavkosmos representative Chandrashekar.
A special police team was constituted to investigate the cases
which were subsequently handed over to the CBI at the
state government's request. Mariam's counsel Prasad Gandhi contends
that Inspector Vijayan seized her passport and air tickets to
prevent her from flying on October 17, the last permissible day
of her stay in the country.
Inspector Vijayan justifies his action on grounds of national
security. He says telephone print-outs obtained from Hotel Samrat
indicated that Mariam was in frequent touch with ISRO scientist
Sasikumar. A diary belonging to her contained suspicious entries
in her handwriting. There were names of Maldivian nationals involved
in subversive activities against Maldives President Abdul Qayyum.
During interrogation, Mariam mentioned a women called Suhara
of Colombo, who the police identified as an ISI agent. All this
strengthened the suspicion of espionage.
Vijayan denies Mariam's allegation of sexual misconduct when he
questioned her in the hotel room. He also dismisses the torture
charge, saying he was told by Intelligence Bureau officials to
leave the interrogation room.
Taking cognisance of the various versions, Ernakulam Chief
Judicial Magistrate Mohana Rajan acquitted Mariam of the charge
of overstaying. The judgment dated November 14, 1995 observed
that Inspector Vijayan had seized her air tickets for the purpose
of arresting her for overstaying, that the police had willfully
obstructed her from leaving the country. On May 2, 1996, the court
discharged the accused in the espionage case for lack of evidence
to sustain the charge.
The ISRO spy scandal left a trail of ruined reputations. It proved
the undoing of then chief minister K Karunakaran, whose open patronage
of Inspector General of Police Raman Srivastava hurt his public
ratings at the time The police had linked Srivastava to Mariam
Rasheeda. The two scientists, Sasikumar and Nambi Narayanan, have
since been transferred out of Thiruvananthapuram. And the Kerala
police faced a crisis of credibility in the wake of an adverse
judicial verdict.
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