ISRO espionage case: Retired IB officer KV Thomas barred from boarding flight

KOCHI: Retired Intelligence Bureau (IB) officer KV Thomas, who was an accused in the ISRO espionage conspiracy case, was stopped from travelling abroad from Kochi Airport early morning on Saturday. He was travelling with his wife to London to meet his daughter.

After completing all procedures, he was stopped at the immigration counter. The officials informed him that the CBI had issued a lookout notice against him and he could not travel abroad. Sources said Thomas came to know about the travel ban after reaching the immigration counter. He had spent over Rs 3 lakh for the tickets alone.

“He will approach the High Court against the travel ban,” the source added. Thomas was linked to the ISRO spy case when ISRO scientist S Nambinarayanan was arrested on charges of espionage along with other officials. Thomas was an IB official in Malappuram in 1994.

Though the CBI cleared him in 1995, the apex court appointed a three-member committee to probe if there was a conspiracy among police officials to frame ISRO scientists in the espionage case. In 2018, after going through (retd) Justice D K Jain’s report, the apex court ordered the CBI to initiate a fresh probe against 18 officials related to the case on charges of conspiracy and fabrication of documents.