Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (78 page)

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Copies of telex massages originated by Mathew John.

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Copies of written reports sent by Mathew to IB

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A summary of the case as perceived by the IB.

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Summary of preliminary investigation done by the IB

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Oral briefing by Mathew and his deputy Srikumar.

I must admit that Mathew had done a thorough job and he had maintained a dispassionate distance from the ongoing interrogation and investigation. Like a true professional he refused to accept what was pedalled as solid intelligence input and he was the first to scrutinise the incongruities in the statements made by the interrogatees. At no point of time he sided with the local politicians and police officers.

I appreciated his taciturn attitude and tried to withdraw the IB from the potent and complicated case. The Director IB insisted that we should continue to linger on with the CBI team. That was not a correct decision. The IB, I felt, should have given any assistance required by the CBI, instead of running a parallel counterintelligence investigation.

After the crucial meeting at Mathew John’s office the CBI team went on its own way and avoided the IB officials including me. I managed to hang on to a trip, as instructed by the DIB, to the LPSC centre but was kept out from the key discussions with the ISRO officials. I was not even invited to attend meetings with the police officers. Vijaya Rama Rao separately called on Karunakaran and other politicians from which I was kept out.

In fact, to avoid humiliation I returned to Delhi in an Indian Air Lines flight.

As I understood the CBI went on breakneck speed to investigate the case in India and abroad. Its findings exonerated the ISRO scientists and the even the Maldivian nationals.

At paragraph 113, page 94 of its report the CBI concluded that Mariyam Rasheeda was in no way related to ISRO plot. Similarly Faujiya Hassan was exonerated too. The report was critical of Inspector Vijayan of Kerala police for prevarication and malfeasance. The report overruled the possibility of Colombo based Zuheira being an ISI agent. Similarly Chandrashekhar of Bangalore and Raman Srivastava, the IG police were cleared of all charges. The CBI had concluded that
“… the accused persons including Rasheeda, Nambi Narayan and Chandrashekhar were harassed and physically abused…There is reason to believe that the interrogators forced the accused persons to make statements on suggested lines….To sum up, in view of the evidence on record, oral as well as documentary, as discussed above the allegations of espionage are not proved and have been found to be false….”

Before this report was filed with the government on 16.4.96 the matter of CBI’s alleged partisan investigation had come up in Kerala High Court. In Niyama Vedi Vs Raman Srivastava (1995 (1) KLT206) case the IB was called upon to produce documents as material pieces of evidence. The IB was reluctant to produce its papers and the videotapes. The developments were pregnant with dangers for the working methodology of the IB. There was also the danger of IB officers being exposed. These nameless and faceless officers normally avoided public glare.

On the other hand the MHA mounted pressure on the IB to represent its case and to retain the Additional Attorney General and CBI’s advocate in the case.

I opposed the idea. While the investigation and court proceedings were on, the CBI, as a part of its trademark speciality, had launched a massive media campaign through newspapers and periodicals about the incongruous ISRO espionage case, which was allegedly concocted by zealous IB and Kerala police officers.

Exceeding all norms of government the Additional Attorney General also contributed a detailed piece for the now defunct Sunday magazine of Calcutta. The write up ridiculed the IB and Kerala police. How could he cross the limits of professional decency?

I was appalled by the propaganda barrage mounted by the CBI. I argued with the Director IB that we should appoint a different advocate to protect the department’s interest. Pathak overruled me as he was under pressure to offer a united face in the ISRO case. He was pulverised by political pressure and had decided to sacrifice his junior colleagues.

It was argued by the Special Secretary Home that two organs of the government could not afford to disagree on the vital national issue. I argued that the cases made out by the IB and the CBI was different. As far as the IB was concerned it was a genuine counterintelligence case. Findings by the IB were contrary to the hasty conclusions drawn by the CBI. It would be better if the IB went unrepresentative as the case was formally handed over to the CBI. But the government insisted that IB should produce ‘
agreeable and unified evidence
’ to the Kerala High Court.

The PMO and the MHA had informally made it clear that the ISRO case should be given a nice burial. The Director IB was incapable of facing the challenges and protecting his officers. He ordered me to produce the evidences to the Kerala High Court and accept CBI’s advocate as IB’s counsel. In deputed a senior officer (V. K. Joshi) to Ernakulam with three videotapes and copies of the essential documents instead of undertaking the visit myself. I had witnessed the hostile attitude of the CBI and did not like to ruffle the feathers by presenting my personal views in the case.

The court had screened the tapes to its satisfaction and observed… “
Reports sent by the IB to the government, which were produced before us, were perused…The report would show that Mariam (sic) Rasheeda and Fousiya (sic) Hassan had reportedly mentioned the name of Raman Srivastava, IG…The reports of IB, which has its own investigating machinery, had in unmistakable terms found the involvement of Raman Srivastava, IG of police, Kerala in the ambit of the case…The Director of CBI while filing his affidavit dated 7.1.95 is seen to have ignored the above aspects of the case. We direct him to re-examine the issue…
”

The High Court also exonerated the Kerala police and the IB from the CBI charges of torturing the arrested/detained suspects. The Court observed that….. “
The three videocassettes produced before the court by the Intelligence Bureau were viewed by us by playing it in a VCP, belonging to this court. From that, it is crystal clear that the three accused gave answer to the questions without any fear of torture….
” The High Court, in fact, passed a serious stricture on the CBI.

At this stage I requested the DIB to produce all the 70 odd videotapes that contained recording of the whole interrogation proceeding. That would contradict the hasty findings of the CBI and satisfy the High Court. Pathak could not gather courage to confront the government with the clinching evidences. My pleadings that this vital omission might cause irreparable damage to the organisation could not instil an iota of courage in him. He appeared to be worried about his own future. His idea of surviving the crisis by playing to the tune of the court was a horrendous act of betrayal of the agency. He should have known that a machete wielding politician and a abattoir butcher were had common genome factors. Pathak did not know how to die the glorious death of a field General.

The Director IB was not in talking terms with the Director CBI and he even avoided meeting the Special Secretary and Secretary of the Home Ministry. I was forced to keep the frayed dialogue line open. The CBI Director, at personal level, continued to be courteous but the Additional Attorney General tried to browbeat me when I was directed to see him at his Old Fort Road residence. My deputy Dilip Trivedi, a bright and daring officer from Uttar Pradesh, accompanied me. The counsel demanded to know as to why the IB did not pay his fees. I told him to raise a demand and the IB would sure reimburse his honorarium.

He suddenly started calling names and flaunted his status of a Minister of State in the government. I lost cool. I told him slowly but bluntly that he was dealing with two senior officers of Indian Police Service and he should maintain decorum in official discussions. He did not tone down the bully vocabulary. I stood up by saying that I had no intention of tolerating his indecent behaviour and left in protest.

I was shocked by the development. It appeared the counsel had fully sided with the CBI and was not willing to hear what the IB had to say. Colleagues warned me that the AAG might exploit his proximity to the Prime Minister and Chandra Swami, a selfstyled
Tantrik
, to fix me up. I was worried, but I had never accepted bullshit through out my life and I was not ready to lower my head to a two-penny advocate.

I requested the Director IB again to produce all the 70 videotapes before the court to prove beyond doubt that the IB officers did not torture the persons interrogated. I demand systematic interrogation of Nambinarayan, Raman Srivastava and Sudhir Kumar Sharma, another suspect in the counterintelligence case.

The chief did not agree on the plea that secret video-operations by the IB should not be exposed to public glare. We had shared 3 videotapes, which had convinced the High Court. What was the harm in sharing the rest of the tapes? After all these tapes could have been treated as secret materials and viewed by the High Court in camera. There was no law in the country that prohibited IB to produce evidences before a court of law in national interest. It only required government permission. How could the government refuse permission when it had already allowed production of 3 tapes? The dictum of departmental security could not stand in the way of concluding a palpably clear counterintelligence case. However, Pathak’s reluctance to face the truth had caused irreparable damage to the agency and individual officers.

As the relationship between the IB and the CBI started deteriorating very fast I decided to sound the PM through a Congress friend that he should separate the political considerations from the essence of the espionage case. There was need for augmenting the security measures around the ISRO establishments all over the country as we were in receipt of some reports that Pakistan was on the verge of testing Ghouri missiles, which had heavily borrowed upon Indian missile technology, in addition to importing know how from North Korea. A senior officer of the PMO discounted the possibility of Pakistan using Indian technology. I wanted to have an exclusive meeting with the ISRO chief. That did not fructify. All the doors were suddenly closed on my face.

As the ISRO event kept on rocking the country I was sounded out by a political friend who enjoyed proximity to the PM that I should support the views of the CBI and say that the IB and Kerala police officers had wilfully maltreated the Maldivian nationals and the Indian scientists. He promised me a plum post-retirement appointment. The pressure from within the organisation and from friends of the Prime Minister had perplexed me. The ISRO case was not a minor operational commitment. It had all the ingredients of a solid counterintelligence case, which could prove that sensitive organisations like the ISRO had also been targeted and penetrated by the ISI. The political masters and the key bureaucrats were not ready to buy the thesis.

Nevertheless I rejected the gracious post-retirement appointment.

*

On the 30th January 1995
night I received call from the Director IB, D. C. Pathak. He described me as an ‘
anti-national person, who had deliberately tried to frame the son of the PM in the ISRO espionage case
’. I tried to argue that it was he, who had overruled me and enclosed the in-house working sheet with his report, which had mentioned the need for interrogation of the son of the PM. The confused person blabbered out something, which was unintelligible.

Next morning, the day of my removal from service, I was informed by a colleague that the Director IB had sent another report on January 30thnight contradicting what all he had so far conveyed to the government in his earlier reports. His latest report, he claimed, was based on ‘independent verification’ conducted by him.

Pathak simply capitulated. He betrayed the trust of the entire organisation and especially the trust of colleagues like Mathew John, Srikumar, S. Jayaprakash and Bishambhar, all belonging to the Kerala unit of the IB. Several officers of the Central Interrogation Team also received stinkers from the CBI in the form of charge sheet. We were utterly disillusioned by the cowardice of our General and his inability to protect the organisation. I rued the day I had recommended him to the Cabinet Secretary.

I was forced to retire from the Indian Police Service on January 31st.

From that night itself the IB placed surveillance on me and my telephone calls. My wife was pestered by ‘friends’ in the IB to persuade me to remain silent. On February 2nd a speeding van tried to hit against my car. That night itself I received calls threatening me with dire consequences if I did not maintain silence on ISRO case. On top of it a sincere friend in the IB visited me and advised to leave the house temporarily as the government was planning a raid on grounds that I had secreted valuable government document at my home without proper authority.

On advice of my personal friends my wife and I went to hiding in Delhi at a friend’s home and returned to our government quarter after five days. By that time I had consulted my children in Jeddah and Ahmedabad and decided to declutch from the entire event. I did not want to jeopardise the security of my family. The government, I knew well, was capable of inflicting any injury on them and me, if I tried to expose the machinations of the mighty person at 7 Race Course Road.