Open Secrets: The Explosive Memoirs of an Indian Intelligence Officer (77 page)

However, on demand from the Director the head of the Kerala unit, Mathew John managed to transmit a daily summary of the interrogation over the telex channel.

While my worthy colleagues in the Pakistan counter-intelligence cell started processing the interrogation inputs and building up a cogent picture of the suspected espionage episode the Director IB kept on shooting special reports to the PMO, MHA, MEA and other concerned organs of the government. As I said, as a chronic analyst he was fond of communicating with the government and his efficiency, he thought, would still be evaluated on the basis of reports he personally signed. On a delicate occasion I tried to point out that the reports should be framed after proper analysis of the interrogation reports, as there were needs for careful separation of the chafe from the grain. He gave me to understand that he was keen to ensure that his reports reached the government first before the R&AW sent in their despatches. The argument was childish and the methodology adopted in exciting the politicians with unprocessed and uninvestigated materials was crude. I pointed out, which was more and less an act of defiance that such premature reporting would soar up the expectations of the politicians and the bureaucrats. We were in no position to substantiate most of the linkages revealed during interrogation. We were yet to carry out sustained ground verification of the facts and incidents disclosed by the interrogated suspects. Establishing inter-linkages of facts and personalities required methodical verification through painstaking investigation. We could not brand the case as a Pakistan sponsored espionage case without correlating the national and international linkages.

I was overruled.

Such practices were unheard of in the Intelligence Bureau.

Failing to convince the boss I requested the subsidiary units in Chennai, Trivundrum and Bangalore to start investigating the leads and confirm the salient points of connectivity that could prove the basics of the espionage case. My colleagues were not equipped to handle such massive investigation. Nonetheless, they took up the job earnestly and started sending feedbacks confirming the landmark revelations by Mariyam Rasheeda, Foujiya Hassan, Sasikumar, and Chandrashekhar etc. My request was backed by the distinct emerging contours of a counterintelligence case. Mariyam and Foujiya were petty Maldivian operators. By themselves they were not capable of handling the sensitive ISRO materials and Indian space programme. The ISRO projects are meant for genuine scientific exploration of the space. But the basic rocket technology was equally applicable to military use. Pakistan, at that point of time had started receiving M11 rockets from Chinese and North Korean sources. They were in the midst of developing indigenous rocket technology, fuel and guidance systems. It was interested to acquire knowledge about Cryogenic engine, which India was on the threshold of developing. It was but natural for Pakistan to snoop around the ISRO and ferret out Indian designs and rocket engine technology. These points were explained to the Director IB, but the IB did not make the government aware of this possible and feasible threat from Pakistan. Lack of appropriate threat assessment from Pakistan on this front and Pakistan’s quest for rocket technology should have been interwoven with the interrogation and enquiry process.

I am not aware if the ISRO had explained the finer nuances of the suspected counterintelligence case to the concerned departments of the government.

Having satisfied myself about the strong possibility of uncovering a Pakistani conspiracy, played from bases in the Maldives and Sri Lanka I once again visited Trivandrum and interacted with the State intelligence chief, Sebi Mathew, the DIG in charge of investigation and officers of the Intelligence Bureau. I returned with a feeling that a coherent collage was emerging and there was a distinct counterespionage case that should be pursued jointly by the Kerala police and the IB, in collaboration with the R&AW.

The Central Interrogation Team of the IB could not interrogate Raman Srivastava. The state government hesitated to annoy Karunakaran by making him available for interrogation and for confronting him with the data revealed by other suspects. The data revealed against Raman could only either be confirmed or refuted after crosschecking of the statements made by the other suspects. It is believed that Raman Srivastava’s father, a former IPS officer of Uttar Pradesh had brought pressure upon some key functionaries in the MHA and the PMO, especially on a Special Secretary and a key functionary in the PMO, both hailing from UP. Two of them spoke to me and advised to ‘let Raman off the hook.’ I was given to understand that Karunakaran had spoken to the PM and prevailed upon him to scuttle the investigation. He also raised the plea of destruction of the image of the ISRO and injuring the morale of the scientists.

They turned down my argument that the IB was entitled to enquire into the counterintelligence leads. IB had nothing to do for defaming the ISRO. In fact, it had no transaction with the space agency before the Mariyam scandal came to surface. The friends of Raman Srivastava failed to understand that Pakistan had abiding interest in Indian rocket technology and they were themselves engaged in developing indigenous rockets with borrowed and stolen know how. They also did not appreciate the argument that peaceful space rocketry and militarised rockets used the same technology. Pakistan had an abiding interest in Indian rocket technology especially development of cryogenic engine technology. But it was a frustrating experience to argue with the senior bureaucrats.

On the basis of these materials and also on the basis of materials culled out of the videotapes I prepared a ‘working sheet’ that outlined the leads that were still to be investigated and linked with the events already substantiated.

At that point of time several interrogation segments threw up the name of Prabhakar Rao, a son of the Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao for his connectivity with Bangalore based contacts of the Maldivian women. In the ‘in house’ working sheet I had pointed out the need for informally questioning Prabhakar Rao to clarify certain points.

I also argued with the Director that the ISRO case had taken a mammoth shape and the IB was not in any way competent to investigate the linkages in Sri Lanka, Russia and Maldives. There was no scope for handing over the case to R&AW also. The R&AW did not have expertise in handling counterintelligence matters. I, however, visited the R&AW office on a couple of occasions and briefed the R&AW officers about the progress achieved in the investigation. They, especially Arun Bhagat, the senior R&AW hand, who later managed to grab the chair of Director IB, were briefed and were handed over briefs that required investigation by them, in Sri Lanka, Russia and Maldives. The inputs received from R&AW mostly corroborated some important disclosures made by the suspects interrogated. It may, however remembered that the R&AW cannot issue letter rogatory to foreign police agencies and involve the Interpol. Therefore, the R&AW enquiries were superficial in nature.

A few days later a Bangalore based joint secretary of the Department of Space, who happened to be a Bengali, visited me in Delhi and expressed his appreciation of the progress of the investigation. He gave me to understand that the chief of ISRO had ordered an in house investigation to locate and identify the ‘missing documents’ those were purportedly smuggled out by Sasikumaran and Nambinarayan. He also conveyed the appreciation of the ISRO chief. This discussion session was recorded and conveyed to the DIB.

In the meantime summon from the personal secretary to the Prime Minister rattled me completely. He wanted to impress me with two arguments: the high fly publicity received by the case was likely to harm the intrinsic interests of India’s space programme and the political opponents of the Prime Minister were likely to use the case to weaken the Congress party in Kerala. Perhaps politically his concerns were valid. But I was neither in a position to muzzle the media nor throttle the gullets of the politicians.

Nevertheless, I understood that I was handling a hot piece of iron and it should be transferred to a different palm. The Central Bureau of Investigation was the natural choice. Only that agency could interact with the Interpol and appoint a special team to investigate the intelligence leads culled out from the interrogation reports. I persuaded the Director IB to discuss the matter with the Director CBI, Vijaya Rama Rao. But D. C. Pathak, for some reason or other, was not in talking terms with the Director CBI. I was directed to interact with him and fathom out his mind. In fact, I enjoyed close rapport with the CBI Director. He received me well but was not in favour of taking up investigation into the complicated espionage case.

I argued with Pathak once more and dragged him to the room of the Union Home Secretary (Padmanabhaiya) to request him to hand the case over to the CBI. The note prepared by me impressed the Home Secretary and he agreed to do the needful after initial dithering. Probably he was bound by the convention of taking clearance from the Home and Prime Minister. He took the correct approach. I felt a sense of relief.

But, as I said, destiny caught up with me through another immature action by D. C. Pathak, Director IB.

The Trivandrum unit chief had summarised the entire interrogation process (to date) and sent a detailed telex message (32 pages) with concluding comments that some of the revelations were yet to be confirmed and there were certain points of contradiction.

I summarised the report and brought it up for discussion with the Director. He wanted to shoot off a special report immediately. I pointed out that the report would require proper sifting before a communication of affirmative nature was sent to the highest quarters of the government. Moreover, I pointed out that legally the case was now a baby of the CBI. The IB should not get itself committed to any specifics in writing.

Pathak was reluctant to listen to reasonable argument and drafted a rather lengthy report by himself and I was asked to wait in his back office. Around 22.30 that fateful night he finalised the report and wanted at attach the ‘
in house working sheet
’ with it.

I objected. It was a crude work sheet for internal use. It was not meant for consumption of the government and the CBI. The Director was only to see and approve the line of actions suggested in the working sheet. He again vetoed my arguments. The deadly ‘
working sheet
’ that included the name of Prabhakar Rao was shot off along with the main report.

Another action of folly was his order to send a photocopy of the 32-paged telex from Trivandrum to the Director CBI that night itself. I pointed out that the comments of our unit in charge Mathew John verged on vacillation and it would not be prudent to expose the raw flesh of the IB at this stage. Moreover, the Home Secretary had just agreed in principle to transfer the case to the CBI. We should, I argued, wait for a formal request from the Kerala government and a proper notification by the government of India. WE could share a polished version with the CBI, especially when the political forces in Kerala and the ruling Congress party were sharply divided. For the third time, that fateful night, my Director overruled me. I managed to scribble a handwritten note on the photocopy of the telex message and forwarded the damaging material to the Director CBI at his residence. It was an immature decision and a big blunder.

Soon after the report was received in the PMO hell broke lose. The PM rushed to Kerala, openly for political work, but in fact to prevail upon the Kerala administration to go slow in the ISRO espionage case.

In the mean time, after issue of official notification, I was directed to accompany the Director CBI and his team in a special Beech Craft Air King plane to Trivandrum. I was informed at Palam that the flight would break journey at Nagpur for refuelling and picking up on board supplies. Somewhere over Bhopal the Director CBI was called into the cockpit to receive a call from Delhi. On return he announced that the flight would now halt for refuelling at Bangalore, as he was required to attend an important meeting.

It was an innocuous announcement but a sudden change in the denouement of the CBI Director had sent out a loud message that certain subtle changes had clouded Vijaya Rama Rao’s mind. He went into a huddle meeting with his officers, which I watched with curiousity. Something had gone amiss.

At Bangalore Vijaya Rama Rao and his Inspector General drove away towards the town. I managed to hitch a hike from the Bangalore unit chief of the IB and had a nice vegetarian meal at Dasa Prakasham.

The CBI Director returned after about two and half hours. I gathered that he had gone to ‘pay a courtesy call’ on Margaret Alva, the Union Minister in charge of the Department of Personnel, that overlooked the functioning of the CBI. The courtesy call was determined high above the skies over Bhopal, as the celebrated minister had reportedly sprained her leg. I also gathered from one of the CBI officers that Vijaya Rama Rao had also attended a meeting with Kasturirangan, the ISRO chief and he had a telephonic conversation with the PM.

From the very moment Vijaya Rama Rao boarded the flight at Bangalore the entire atmosphere of bonhomie disappeared. He did not speak to me, an unusual behavioural pattern for a warm person like him.

Surprisingly a crowd of journalist accosted us at Trivandrum. I evaded them and directed them to speak to the CBI officials.

Next day I sat over a meeting with the CBI team in the office of Mathew John and two of us together handed over the following case materials to the CBI team:

·
        
Copies of all interrogation reports.

·
        
Three Videotapes of interrogation (rest of the tapes were secured in Delhi).