A shocking video, wherein a minor Hindu boy from Cumilla district in Bangladesh is seen being brutally thrashed by a local Bangladeshi Muslim Awami League leader in front of his mother as he lies helpless on the ground begging for mercy, is going viral on social media.
Horrific!
This video is from Bangladesh, here Abu Taher, a bangladeshi Muslim is beating up a Hindu boy Raju Chandra in front of Raju’s mother & other family members.
Those “Protestors” want Abu Taher to get Indian citizenship if Raju is getting it.
The incident took place at Kaziatol Purbopara village in Muradnagar Upazila of Cumilla in Bangladesh on December 25 (Wednesday). The tortured victim, Rajib Chandra Biswas, is the son of a local in the village, Rakhal Chandra Biswas, whereas the accused Abu Taher is the Matabbor (informal village head) and also a union level leader of the ruling Bangladesh Awami League party.
In the 2.25-minute video, Abu Taher is seen kicking Raju Chandra on his chest and face and back ruthlessly, while Raju’s mother stands helplessly with tears rolling down her cheeks. Taher beats up the youth black and blue for allegedly not showing respect to him. Helpless screams of the victim and repeated requests of his mother failed to deter Abu Taher from inflicting the inhuman torture on the boy.
Meanwhile, Sajal Chandra Biswas, elder brother of the victim, filed a case against the village headman Abu Taher with Muradnagar Police Station. In his complaint, he wrote: “My brother was working as a goldsmith at Tatibazar of Dhaka. Recently his mental health deteriorated so we brought him back to our village home. On Wednesday, Rajib ransacked our home and broke the showcases, so we tied him at our house yard. He was shouting at random towards the passer-by and one of them happened to be Taher,” Sajal said.
“On hearing Rajib’s outcry Taher came to our yard and started kicking him in the face, chest and back despite a repeated plea from my mother,” Sajal added.
The officer in charge of Muradnagar Police Station, AKM Manjur Alam said Taher has been absconding since the incident and efforts are being made to arrest him.
According to the information received from an RTI, Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu had claimed reimbursement from the government for his personal visit to Pakistan during the swearing-in ceremony of the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan.
Sidhu had gone to Pakistan to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan. However, Sidhu had then described his visit as a personal visit and not a political one. The RTI reveals that Sidhu claimed for the reimbursement for the petrol expenses, driver’s salary and his own daily allowance and travel allowance from the Punjab government to and fro from his home in Amritsar to the Wagah border.
Questions are now being raised of Sidhu for charging the government treasury for what he described as his private visit to Pakistan, as Sidhu had gone on a personal invitation by the former Pakistani cricketer and not on an official visit by a representative of the Indian government.
As the controversy continues to rage on, Navjot Kaur Sidhu, the wife of Navjot Singh Sidhu, claimed that her husband has not claimed any daily allowance or travel allowance while on his visit to Pakistan on the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan. However, the information received from the RTI says that Sidhu indeed for the travel and daily allowances.
In addition, Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, a minister in the Punjab government, has come out in defence of the former minister saying that ministers’ travel allowance, daily allowance, fuel details of the vehicles and driver’s salary like expenses are prepared by the staff. He asserted that Sidhu’s staff members would have mistakenly added information about those days when he went on his personal visit to Pakistan for the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan.
However, Akali Dal leader Charanjit Brar, said that when Sidhu had openly declared that he is going to visit Pakistan not as a Cabinet Minister but as a close friend of Imran Khan, he should not have claimed such a paltry expenditure from the Punjab government and should have stayed true to his words.
It is also noteworthy to mention that Navjot Singh Sidhu’s visit to Pakistan had drawn ire from several quarters, especially the Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh who slammed him for hugging the Pakistani Army Chief General Bajwa while on his visit to Pakistan. Sidhu was also excoriated for his meek acceptance to sit besides Pakistan occupied President during the swearing-in ceremony.
A group of seven Muslim men abducted and assaulted a 35-year-old doctor of a private hospital after one of their family members died after delivering a baby on Wednesday night in Ahmedabad.
Reportedly, the incident was reported from Navkar Hospital near Shreyas overbridge in Ahmedabad, where the doctor, identified as Dr Kalpesh Nakum, an anesthesiologist was attending to the female patient Ruksar Pathan.
According to the complaint filed by Nakum, a group of five to seven men first assaulted him and then took him to a deserted place near Danilimda where they forced him to “confess” his negligence during the operation. The FIR said Ruksar Pathan passed away after delivering a baby at the hospital.
In his complaint, Nakum said, “As part of my practice, I injected anaesthesia to the spinal cord of the patient after which the main surgeon started the operation. The woman gave birth to a baby girl but after the operation, she started bleeding excessively. A 108 ambulance was called and she was taken to VS hospital. I decided to stay back at Navkari Hospital to do some paperwork. Around 9 pm, I noticed a commotion at the hospital reception desk and saw three unknown men creating a ruckus there”.
He added that when the men saw him they assaulted and dragged him to a car parked outside the hospital entrance gate. They also ransacked his office, broke furniture and telephone, took his phone and switched it off. Reportedly, the men then took him to a deserted spot near Jamalpur bridge and informed him that they are relatives of the woman who died after the surgery.
They then forced him to confess at knifepoint that it was his negligence that caused her death, the doctor said. He added that the accused shot three videos of him confessing and later dropped him at Narol.
Dr Nakum suffered injuries in his left eye and chest region after the assault, and is currently being treated at Chintan Hospital in Jivraj Park. Currently, he can see only with his right eye as the retina of his left is badly damaged and will take time to heal.
The police have filed a case of assault and kidnapping against unknown persons under IPC sections 323 and 365 respectively, based on the doctor’s statement.
“We have not arrested anyone in this matter yet. The doctor has said that seven persons claiming to be relatives of the deceased woman were part of it. They are yet to be identified,” said a police officer at Ellis Bridge station.
In June, a similar attack on a doctor by a Muslim mob in Kolkata had ignited a huge uproar across the country. Several thousand doctors across the country had hit the streets not only to protest against the vandalism of Muslim mobs but also against Mamata Banerjee led state government for not failing to take action against the Muslim mobs.
The strikes had erupted after a violent mob had attacked doctors at NRS Medical College and Hospital following the death of an old patient who was already in critical condition. The hospital had turned into a battleground after family members assaulted junior doctors at the institution causing critical head injuries to two junior doctors.
Throwing its weight behind the anti-CAA rioters who wreaked mayhem in the state of Uttar Pradesh, the official Twitter handle of All India Mahila Congress posted a tweet slamming the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for the action taken against the violent protestors by the UP Police.
Along with demonising Yogi Adityanath, the tweet posted by Congress, which has now been removed, also contained a distorted map of India. The entire Jammu and Kashmir union territory and Ladakh union territory along with the parts under illegal occupation of Pakistan were conspicuously absent from the map.
Now-deleted tweet by Mahila Congress
The picture not only had parts of Jammu and Kashmir missing, but Mahila Congress also ended up insulting India by showing Yogi Adityanath ‘hanging’ the country with a noose.
In an attempt to align with the rampaging mob that caused grave damages to public property and left a bevy of policemen injured during the protests against the enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act, the Congress party proceeded to demonise the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister for sanctioning punitive action against the hoodlums who carried out illegal activities under the garb of peaceful protests.
Congress had asserted through the tweet that the entire country, especially Uttar Pradesh, is in the grips of violence because of the alleged heavy-handed approach of the government. It stated that Yogi government is scheming intrigues in full glory against its own people and innocents are losing their lives. This was, apparently, in reference to 19 deaths that happened in Uttar Pradesh after the anti-CAA riots rocked several parts of the state.
Yogi Adityanath had already hinted that he has zero tolerance for the unruly behaviour of the mob indulging in arson and vandalism. In an unprecedented crackdown against the lumpen elements, the Yogi government arrested 1113 people after filing 327 cases related to violence. The state government has also issued notices to 372 people to recover damages to public infrastructure by seizing their properties.
Besides, an organised smear campaign was ran against the UP police alleging them of wantonly employing violent means to suppress ‘peaceful protests’ stages by the opposers of the CAA. However, this was debunked by the UP police themselves by releasing videos and photos that conclusively implicated the rioters.
In one of the videos from AMU, charged-up rioters can be seen breaking down the gate of the AMU as against the claim made by the sympathisers of the rioters that UP police broke it down. In another image circulated by Firozabad police, stones and bricks placed on the roofs of the houses can be seen, effectively vindicating the police stance that the protests were diligently planned to incite violence and anarchy.
However, despite the overwhelming evidence incriminating the rioters, the Congress party has chosen to stand in solidarity with those who exhibited absolute disregard for the law of the land and actively took part in carrying out riots and instigating violence against the law enforcement agencies.
It must be remembered that Congress functionaries have been arrested from several places where Muslim mobs went on a rampage. The anti-CAA riot in Gujarat’s Ahmedabad had taken an ugly turn a frenzied Muslim mob went on a rampage and indulged in indiscriminate stone-pelting against the police personnel in the Shah-e-Alam area. A part of the Muslim mob had also tried to lynch a policeman who had stumbled while running from the frenzied mob throwing stones. The Ahmedabad Police had arrested Congress Corporator Shehzad Khan Pathan along with 32 others for carrying out the deadly attack during anti-CAA riots on police personnel. They have been booked for attempt to murder, rioting and assaulting police.
The Uttar Pradesh Director-General of Police (DGP) OP Singh has also said that radical Islamic groups and mainstream political parties could have been involved in orchestrating riots across the state during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests.
He had said that members of radical Islamic organisations – Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political front, Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI), including political parties like Samajwadi Party were involved in instigating Muslim mobs to indulge in violence across the state during the anti-CAA protests.
Essentially, with that insulting post, Congress is now siding with radical Islamists and in all probability, trying to gloss over the fact that Congress functionaries have been arrested in connection to the violence in different states. In Jamia violence too, a Congress leader was named in the charge sheet.
In addition, the omission of entire Jammu and Kashmir, let alone the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh betrays the subconscious stand espoused by Congress vis-a-vis the Himalayan state. Perhaps, the Congress party does not consider the state of Jammu and Kashmir, including the illegally held Pakistan, occupied Kashmir as an integral part of the country.
This stance is in consonance with Congress stalwart Shashi Tharoor’s stand, who recently shared an image of Indian map with omitted parts of Jammu and Kashmir. In a tweet, Shashi Tharoor has posted an infographic related to a ‘Bharat Bachao’ protest rally in Kozhikode, Kerala led by the Congress party against the Citizenship Amendment Act. However, in a hurry to ‘protest’ against the government, Tharoor undermined the territorial integrity of the country by sharing the map of India while leaving out certain parts of Jammu and Kashmir.
The Nabarangpur Police in Odisha today registered a suo-moto case against Congress former MP Pradeep Majhi for brazenly instructing his party workers to prepare for an arson attack while staging a protest against alleged rape and murder of a minor girl in Kosagumuda area on December 14.
Taking note of the incident, Nabarangpur Police has registered a case against the former Nabarangpur MP under Sections 147, 341, 353, 283, 506, 435, 120 (B) of IPC and Section 3 of PDPP.
#Nabarangpur Police registers suo-motu case against Congress leader Pradip Majhi for instigating violence while staging protest yesterday against alleged rape & murder of a minor girl in Kosagumuda area; Majhi booked under sec 147, 341, 353, 283, 506, 435, 120 (B)-IPC & PDPP-3 pic.twitter.com/oU7TOfxNir
Responding to the police action, the Congress leader brazenly said that he does not fear action as it was a ploy by the state government to throttle the voice of those who rise against its misgovernance. “why only a handful, they are free to book people of the entire district”, said the former Congress MP.
We don’t fear action because it’s a ploy by #Odisha govt to throttle voice of those who rise against its misgovernance; why only a handful, they are free to book people of entire district: Pradip Majhi on police FIR against him over his ‘set-everything-on-fire’ remark (File Pic) pic.twitter.com/ZiDYgbBBwe
The State unit of Congress has reportedly sought an explanation from Majhi in the matter. “I have asked him for an explanation for his statement. Only 24 hours have passed, but given rising atrocities on girls and women in tribal areas and police inaction, his anger is understandable,” said OPCC chief Niranjan Patnaik while speaking to Republic TV.
On the other hand, the BJP has slammed Congress while condemning Majhi’s inflammatory comments. “Congress is boasting about non-violence but it has now chosen the path of violence. Pradip Majhi said that they are following Subash Bose’s ideology by resorting to extremism but the freedom fighter never promoted such thinking. We strongly condemn it,” said BJP spokesperson Golak Mohapatra.
Yesterday, a shocking video had surfaced in which Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Nabarangpur district, Odisha and former MP Pradeep Majhi is brazenly seen instructing his party workers over the phone to prepare for an arson attack. He is heard asking his party workers to keep petrol and diesel ready and wait for further instructions before setting everything on fire.
“Keep petrol and diesel ready. The moment you get an order set everything on fire. We’ll see what happens next,” Majhi was caught on camera while talking to someone over the phone in his native Odia language.
Congress had been observing 12-hour ‘bandh’ in Nabarangpur today protesting ‘police inaction’ in connection with the alleged gang rape and murder of a minor girl in Kosagumuda Police Station area of the district on December 14.
According to a report by Odisha TV, Majhi was staging a protest near Kaunriaguda Chhak in the morning when the Additional SP of Nabarangpur intervened and asked him to withdraw the agitation triggering an exchange of words between them. An infuriated Majhi later reportedly called his party cadres and asked them to keep petrol and diesel ready.
In a related development, a vehicle was set on fire by some miscreants near Ambedkar Chakk in Nabarangpur Town. Though their identities could not be established, sources suspect the car was set ablaze after Majhi’s call.
Yesterday also when the Congress leader was approached he sounded unremorseful for his action. Acknowledging that he had directed his party workers to set everything on fire, Congress leader said to OTV: “I am not at all repentant over my outburst.”
Amidst the ongoing debate across the country over the implementation of National Register of Citizens, the Communist-led Kerala government will hold a headcount of foreigners imprisoned in the state to identify a building to set up a Foreigners’ Detention Centre.
Reportedly, the Department of Social Justice (DSJ) of Kerala has been entrusted with the task of setting up the facility. The DSJ has been awaiting the data on foreigners, who have been either convicted here or waiting to be extradited for various offences, for setting up the facility.
The department will look for a building for the facility only after they receive information regarding the number of such foreigners present in the state. Currently, no separate facility is available with the department to house foreigners. The new buildings will be taken on rent or constructed, said a senior Government official.
The DSJ has been unsuccessfully writing to the State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) since June this year seeking information on the number of foreigners to identify suitable buildings to house them. The latest reminder seeking the data was sent to the SCRB on November 26 this year, an official said.
The state Home Department has asked the DSJ to set up suitable facility outside the prison premises and Police Department. It was also informed that a separate administrative set up should be created for manning the facility as the Police Department was facing acute shortage of staff.
Reportedly, the centre was meant for housing those who have illegally entered the country and those foreigners whose visa and passport have expired. The under-trial prisoners of foreign origin and those who have completed their jail term here and awaiting deportation may also be shifted to the facility.
The department is yet to receive any funds from the Central government to set up the centre. However, according to the officials, the funds available with the State government could be used for the purpose.
The year is practically over. Unlike the end of the last year, when the fever pitch for the General Election was rising with each passing day, politics is really winding down. It is time to take stock of the year that went by.
Indian politics and Indian media hits many new lows every day. Even today, a prominent celebrity reporter says he saw only tricolours and portraits of Mahatma Gandhi at anti-CAA rallies. This when anti-CAA rioters have pelted stones on school buses. So there you go: there maybe just 5 days left in the year but there are always new and promising candidates for ‘Worst of 2019.’
So I am really taking a risk here announcing the “worst of 2019” with still 5 days to spare in the year.
But after much thought, I realized that no act in the whole of 2019 can be so low as what we saw the Caravan do after the Pulwama attack. I am not even talking about this headline where fallen soldiers of Pulwama terror attack were divided along caste lines by Caravan.
The Pulwama attack united the country behind one single cause: to avenge the killing of our jawans.
Growing up in India, I am no stranger to terrorist attacks. But Pulwama was the first time I felt something in the air. Random people I was passing on the street were talking about it. I was walking down a hallway and happened to hear someone talking into their cell: also discussing the attack. The sense of gloom and desire for revenge seemed to have filtered down to every citizen. Nobody wanted to ‘move on,’ which used to be our old stock response to the terror attacks of yore.
I would say the two feelings feed off each other. After Uri and the surgical strikes, India realized that we had a new security doctrine in place. That we could realistically expect revenge. Till now, we never did anything and so people never expected anything. So it looked like people just went about their lives without caring too much. But in reality, they had just made peace with the fact that it is our lot to suffer, shrug off and move on.
Once that equation changed with the surgical strikes, the real emotions came flooding out. There was anger and there was despair. But there was also anticipation to see how India would strike back. An elderly relative called my mom a few days later to complain, “Ten days have passed and still no revenge. What is the government doing?”
For a generation that grew up expecting not the slightest bit of retaliation for Kandahar, for Parliament attacks, for Mumbai train bombings, for 26/11 … this was certainly a new India.
And so, with the nation united, the elite media could have only one instinct. How to divide? And how do they divide us? Caste of course.
That headline from Caravan is distasteful enough. But when you get to the details in the article, you see that it is horrifying beyond imagination.
Yes, it is not for nothing that I believe this is the worst of 2019.
Just imagine. A family is grieving. Parents crying for their son, perhaps a wife crying for her husband, maybe even a child crying for their father. The body may have come home in several pieces if any of it is identifiable at all. It would probably take a heart of steel to simply look at the remains.
And now imagine. In the midst of all this, a call comes. An elite journalist is on the phone. They don’t care about who your son was. What was his life, what were his hopes and dreams? They want to know the caste of your fallen son. Because they couldn’t figure it out from your caste neutral last name.
Indeed, if there is one thing that must scare the Ajaz Ashrafs of the world, it is people with caste neutral surnames.
Imagine being at the receiving end of that phone call.
Imagine being the journalist and alleged human being who makes that phone call.
Imagine being the editor who approves the publication of such an article.
And finally, imagine being the media club that applauds this lowly, shameful act.
And maybe then you would understand just how deep our media has buried its moral compass.
Terror has no religion, but a fallen soldier is not allowed to have a caste neutral name. Elite journalists will dig it up for us.
Dear Ajaz Ashraf (the Caravan author who thought it was acceptable to ask the caste of fallen soldiers of Pulwama) you truly are the worst of humanity. And most certainly, the worst of 2019.
The Jamia Millia Islamia students who spearheaded the anti-CAA riots on December 15, which rapidly took a nationwide direction, have once again planned fresh stir outside the Uttar Pradesh Bhavan in Delhi.
The Delhi police have beefed up security as the Jamia students are planning to gherao the Uttar Pradesh Bhawan in the national capital on Friday, at around 3 pm to agitate against the Yogi Adityanath government over the deaths of rioters in police action during the anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests in the state.
Demanding Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s resignation, the Jamia Coordination Committee, the convener of CAA protest, alleged that the Uttar Pradesh government is “firing bullets” on the protesters agitating against the new citizenship law.
The committee alleged that besides shutting 67 shops in Muzaffarnagar and arresting innumerable people opposing CAA, the Uttar Pradesh Police under Yogi Adityanath’s guidance have shot at least 20 people during the CAA protests in the state.
Students have now planned to register their protest against the state government. In view of the demonstration, police have made tight security arrangements at the Uttar Pradesh Bhawan.
It is pertinent to note here, that the Uttar Pradesh police have released several videos and pictures which busts the myth that anti-CAA protests were inherently peaceful and spontaneous. These videos show how rioters have been attacking police personnel, resorting to vandalism, arson and rioting, damaging the public property and injuring public as well as the police officials.
Meanwhile, flag marches were conducted in some areas of the Northeast district in Delhi and heavy police force has been deployed in place in Jamia Nagar, Jama Masjid and Chanakyapuri amid protest calls.
As prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC have been in place in the district since a month after protests turned violent, the police have urged people to not participate in any demonstrations that could turn violent.
The Delhi Police have also put up a banner asking people to refrain from staging demonstrations outside the Uttar Pardesh Bhawan as prohibitory orders are in place.
Since the passing of the Citizenship Amendment Act by both houses of Parliament, Jamia students have been opposing the law. In fact, the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act began from Jamia Millia Islamia University.
On December 15, residents of Jamia Nagar attacked the police with stones, bottles, tube lights though they were there for the safety and security of the students
Delhi Police had entered the campus on December 15 to flush out the protesting students after protests in Jamia Nagar turned violent as buses were torched and vandalized by Muslim mobs in the National Capital.
According to reports, Jihadist slogans were raised. The so-called ‘protesters’ raised slogans of ‘Hinduon se Azadi’ and ‘Chheen ke lengey Azadi’ and ‘Ladh ke lengey Azadi’. The slogans translate to ‘Freedom from Hindus’, ‘We will fight for freedom’.
It was later established that these violent protests were not organic. They are clearly coordinated by Congress while trying their best to ensure that the Congress, NSUI connect does not get revealed so these protests can be passed off as organic.
After realising that the anti-CAA protests have been exposed after Islamic mob created havoc across India and several Congress leaders were found to be instigating the mob, the Congress party has diverted its rhetoric from ‘anti-Muslim’ to ‘anti-poor’. Earlier, the Congress-left-liberal ecosystem had diverted its attention from CAA to NRC and NPS after the anti-CAA protests had fizzled out following the crackdown on the rioters. Moreover, people had realised that the Citizenship Amendment Act has nothing to do with Indian citizens. As a result, the Congress party seems to have resorted back to its age-old tactic of terming the govt initiatives as anti-poor.
Talking to media, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi said that the National Register of Citizens and the National Population Register are taxes on the poor. He went to compare the NRC and NPR with demonetisation, saying just like demonetisation was a tax on the poor, the NRC and NPR are also attacks on the poor.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi: Whether NRC or NPR, it is a tax on the poor, demonetisation was a tax on the poor. It is an attack on poor people, now the poor is asking how will we get jobs? pic.twitter.com/uRtYYy9YTy
Repeating his lie of taking money from poor to benefit few rich, Rahul Gandhi said that during demonetisation, poor people were asked to deposit their money in bank, but were not allowed to withdraw the same. He added that this money was given to 15-20 people, repeating his pre-Lok Sabha election lies. The former Congress president said that NRC and NPR are also a similar tax on the poor.
Rahul Gandhi’s attack on NRC has no basis as there is no formal proposal to implement the it on the national level. The BJP has been promising to implement it, but officials discussions on it are yet to begin. Therefore, the structure and conditions of the proposed nationwide NRC are yet to be finalised, but still, the Congress party is opposing the same. Moreover, the process to update the NRC in Assam was started by the Congress government, which was concluded during the term of BJP government under the supervision of the Supreme Court.
On the matter of NPR, BJP government is not doing it for the first time. The NPR was already prepared in 2010-11 along with the decadal census, and this is being done along with the census of 2021. It is not something new like the CAA, but still, the Congress party and the left-liberal ecosystem is opposing something which is just a part of regular census and has been already done once.
Moreover, the NPR process is done as part of the regular census, it is not a separate process where people have to somewhere to submit documents. Therefore, the claim of Rahul Gandhi that it is a tax on poor people have absolutely no basis.
The Kerala government has in-principle approved to give compensation of Rs 1.3 crore to former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan. This compensation was approved for his wrongful arrest and harassment by the Kerala Police in the 1994 ISRO spy case. Nambi Narayanan had filed a case against his unlawful arrest in Thiruvananthapuram sub-court.
Kerala state cabinet today gave in-principle approval to give Rs 1.3 crore compensation to former ISRO scientist S Nambi Narayanan, to settle a case he filed in Thiruvananthapuram Sub Court against his unlawful arrest. (file pic) pic.twitter.com/ii0redpmvL
Nambi Narayanan was a scientist in ISRO and headed the cryogenics division. In November 1994, Narayanan was arrested along with two other scientists D Sasikumaran and K Chandrasekhar at that time by the Kerala police after allegations of espionage under the sections 3,4 and 5 of the Official Secrets Act.
Apart from these three scientists SK Sharma, an Indian representative of the Russian Space Agency, a labour contractor and a man named Fauzia Hassan were also arrested. All of them were accused of giving secret information of ISRO’s rocket engine to Pakistan.
After his arrest, he was remanded in police custody for a period of 50 days during which he was harassed and tortured by officials of Kerala police and the Indian intelligence bureau.
However, after an investigation by the CBI, the allegations on him were found to be false and in 1998, the Supreme Court upheld the findings by the CBI and had asked the Kerala government to pay Rs 1 lakh in compensation to Narayanan and others. However, Dr Narayanan had approached the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)seeking justice for the harassment and agony meted out to him. In 2001, the NHRC had awarded a compensation of Rs 10 lakhs to him.
The Supreme Court also awarded former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan a compensation of Rs 50 lakhs in September last year, for his wrongful arrest and harassment by the Kerala Police in the 1994 ISRO spy case.
The apex court had also ordered a probe into the role of the police officers involved in Narayanan’s arrest and alleged harassment in custody. The three-member probe panel is to be headed by former judge DK Jain.
The Union government led by Narendra Modi finally awarded prestigious Padma Bhushan to Nambi Narayanan on the occasion of 70th Republic Day in 2019.
However, the compensation was a very small price paid for decades-long physical and mental agony suffered by the Narayanan who fell prey to the deadly political-bureaucratic nexus during the Congress era. Nambi Narayanan perhaps had never thought that the factionalism between two groups of the Kerala Congress would end his distinguished career of being a premier space scientist.
In July 2019, former RAW (Research and Analysis Wing) officer NK Sood had made explosive revelations about his time in Iran, Hamid Ansari (the Vice-President in Congress regime) and the vilified scientist Nambi Narayanan. In an exclusive interview, Sood revealed how a close aide of Hamid Ansari, India’s Vice-President during Congress regime, was instrumental in ruining the career of India’s greatest space scientists, Nambi Narayanan.
The former RAW officer while talking to journalist Chiranjeevi Bhat had said: “A man named Ratan Sehgal has been an associate of Hamid Ansari. You must have heard the name of Nambi Narayanan. He was accused of espionage but the Supreme Court found all the allegations against him baseless. They were acquitted innocent. However, no one knows who hatched the conspiracy against him? Ratan Sehgal did all this. It was he who laid the trap of espionage charges to vilify Nambi Narayanan. He did this to spoil the image of India at the International level. While Ratan was in the IB, he was caught while spying for the American agency CIA. Now he is happily living in America. He is close to former Vice-President Ansari and used to scare us. He used to instruct us,” had revealed the RAW officer.
