Fauzia Hassan, acquitted in Isro case, dies at 80

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Fauzia Hassan, the Maldivian woman who was arrested in the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) espionage case, died on Tuesday morning in Colombo, where she was undergoing treatment. She was 80.
Fauzia had approached the Supreme Court recently seeking a compensation of Rs 2 crore from the state government for wrongly implicating her in the Isro espionage case and putting her behind bars for three years. She had also raised the complaint that she was jailed for one year even without a trial. The CBI had recorded Fauzia's statement during a video conference last year.

She was arrested by the state police in the Isro espionage case in November 1994 and was imprisoned for three years. She, along with another Maldivian woman, Mariam Rasheeda, was arrested for allegedly having close links with Isro scientists and the police had accused they were spies who were paid to pass on defence information.
The police had claimed that Isro scientist Nambi Narayanan had close links with these women and that all the three had conspired for leaking secret documents from Isro. Besides these two women and Nambi Narayanan, the police had arrested D Sasikumaran, another Isro scientist, and two businessmen K Chandrashekar and Sudhir Kumar Sharma in the case.
Fauzia had later said she had come to India for her daughter's education who was admitted to an institution in Karnataka. She had also claimed that she had never met Isro scientist Nambi Narayanan.
After her release in 1997 when the CBI court acquitted her of all the charges, she had said that the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the state police had forced her to name Nambi Narayanan during the interrogation. She had said that she first saw Nambi Narayanan when he was in CBI custody. According to her, she was subjected to severe torture, and this had led to several health issues later in her life.
After they were freed and acquitted of all charges, the CBI registered a case against the police officers and 14 others for various offences such as criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, and fabrication of evidence under the IPC. The CBI was supposed to meet Fauzia Hassan to take her statement, but it was delayed due to the pandemic.