ISRO spy case: Karunakaran son says Narasimha Rao's hand in 'conspiracy'

Congress leader K Muraleedharan on Sunday said the ISRO spy case was an outcome of Congress factionalism and suspected the role of former prime minister P V Narasimha Rao in the conspiracy behind the case.

A former Congress state president, Muraleedharan is the son of the late Congress leader Karunakaran, who was forced to quit as Kerala chief minister in the wake of the spy case in 1995. Then, A K Antony and Oommen Chandy were leading the intra-party battle against Karunakaran.

Addressing a function organised by social activists "to tender apology to former ISRO scientist Namby Narayanan", Muraleedharan said Karunakaran used to say that Rao was not a trustworthy politician. If conspiracy had taken place in the espionage case, the role of Rao has to be suspected. Within a week after Rao said that he could understand what the spy case was, he (Rao) asked Karunakaran to demit the office of the Chief Minister. Rao wanted to trap rivals in fabricated cases, alleged Muraleedharan.

The Congress legislator questioned the decision of Chief Minister Oommen Chandy not to take action against three Kerala police officers who had probed into the case. If police officials Siby Mathews, K K Joshwa and S Vijayan are questioned, the real conspiracy behind the spy case would come out, he said.

Muraleedharan said he would ask Chandy and the Congress high command to take action against these officials.

Noted writer Paul Zakaria said the police officials and the journalists who cooked up stories in the spy case were also liable to pay compensation for the victims.

It may be recalled that in 1996, the CBI had recommended that action be taken against the above stated three police officials for "their unprofessional conduct of the investigation into the espionage case". After obtaining the explanations of the officials, the then chief secretary in 1997 had said no action was required against them.

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