Fauziyya and Mariyam Rasheedha were jailed in India unjustly for refusing sexual advances: CBI

Former local actress Fauziyya Hassan and her friend Mariyam Rasheedha were both jailed for three years in Indian prisons on false accusations of spying for Pakistan and sharing information about the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) with the country, motivated by the two women's refusal to sexual advances by a former police officer at the Kerala Police Special Branch, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has revealed.

While Fauziyya passed away in August of 2022, she always maintained her innocence and denied the allegations against her. She also claimed that the only reason she admitted to the accusations during her three years in jail was due to physical and psychological abuse she was subjected to, as well as a threat made to arrest and rape her daughter.

She also demanded justice for the abuse she had to endure.

The fact that the women were both physically and mentally tortured was confirmed in the CBI chargesheet as well.

After spending three years in the Kerela jail, both Fauziyya and Mariyam were released with no evidence against the pair.

Another individual, an ISRO scientist named Nambi Narayanan was also framed in the case. However, a 2018 Supreme Court order awarded him a compensation of 5 million Indian Rupees. Another scientist D Sasikumaran as well as two other persons K Chandrasekhar and SK Sharma were also framed in the same case. That year a CBI team flew down to Malé to question Mariyam in the case.

Since then CBI charged several individuals at a Trivandrum court last week, following a Supreme Court mandated investigation.

Details read that an S Vijayan, Siby Mathews, KK Joshua, RB Sreekumar and PS Jayaprakash are the accused in this case, out of which Vijayan is said to have been the one to make sexual advances to Mariyam in a hotel room, which she refused. After being rejected, Vijayan left the hotel room and proceeded to collect information on Mariyam and found that she had been in telephone conversation with Sasikumaran the IRSO scientist, CBI's documents say.

Upon discovering this, he fabricated the accusations against the women, the report said. Vijayan also seized Mariyam's travel documentations and tickets back home, preventing her from leaving even after her visa expired. She was then arrested for overstaying, but these charges later changed to that of spying.

ISRO scientists Nambi Narayanan, D Sasikumaran K Chandrasekhar and contractor SK Sharma were all arrested by the head of a special investigation team and Deputy Inspector General of Kerela Police Siby Mathews. The investigation also found that the men were also subject to torture during their time in lock up.

The chargesheet also revealed that despite interrogation of the scientists and other individuals, no formal reports were prepared.

While all the arrestees were tortured, the chargesheet goes onto say that Nambi Narayanan and K Chandrasekhar received medical care while in jail but the police reports on them fail to include these details. The medical documents were withheld on the order of DISP KK Joshua, who was following the orders of Mathews, it said.

CBI says that the responsibility of the unlawful detention of these individuals must be borne by former DGP RB Sreekumar who served at the Kerela IB in 1994, and further revealed that Sreekumar also went to the hotel to unlawfully interrogate Mariyam, and had his subordinates defy the law on his orders.

Another IB official PS Jayaprakash is also accused of torturing Nambi.

“This is a clear case of abuse of law/authority right from the initial stage… To sustain the initial wrongs, another case of serious nature was launched with false interrogation reports against the victims. These false interrogation reports were used for the arrest of others, including scientists,” the chargesheet read.

Based on these findings, CBI recommended to raise charges against all five accused individuals, who are all former police officers. While there are 11 others who are also mentioned in the charge sheet, CBI declared that sufficient evidence was lacking to make a case against them.