D Sasikumaran is an Indian aerospace engineer who worked for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). In 1994, he was arrested on suspicion of espionage.
Wiki/Biography
D Sasikumaran was born in 1942 (80 years old in 2022) from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
family
Parents and siblings
Not much is known about his parents and siblings.
wife and children
D Sasikumaran’s wife is a doctor. In 1994, she served as Assistant Professor, Trivandrum Medical College
Relationships/Affairs
He is rumored to be having an affair with Mariam Rasheeda, a Maldivian woman who is suspected of being a spy. Sasikumaran reportedly visited her in her hotel room at least twice. The Kerala Police issued the same alert to IB on October 15, 1994.
Mariam Rashida
Profession
Before his arrest in 1994, Sasikumaran served as deputy director of ISRO’s cryogenic technology department and was responsible for the transfer of cryogenic technology from Russia. He was transferred to the Center for Space Applications in Ahmedabad after rumors of his links with a female spy surfaced in the media. After the charges against them were dismissed in 1996, Sasikumar and Narayanan were transferred out of Thiruvananthapuram and given office jobs. Later, Sasikumaran started working as an engineering consultant in Thiruvananthapuram.
dispute
Flagged as of questionable integrity by ISRO
D Sasikumaran and Nambi Narayanan were accused of violating the Code of Conduct for Government Employees, 1964, as they were working for private gains while still in ISRO. While Narayanan was privately advising a contractor doing extensive foreign exchange transactions, Sasikumaran was planning to set up a private company. Thus, a decade before the espionage scandal broke out in 1994, these scientists were labeled by ISRO as having questionable integrity, running private businesses and possessing unaccounted wealth.
Arrested in 1994 for false espionage case
In November 1994, D. Sasikumaran, his colleagues Nambi Narayanan, Sudhir Kumar Sharma (a Bangalore businessman), K. Chandrasekhar (Indian representative of the Russian space agency Glavkosmos) and Maldivian women Mariam Rasheeda and Fousiya Hasan were arrested in Kerala After a team of state police and intelligence agency officials were accused of espionage.
Mariam Rasheeda and Fousiya Hasan arrested in 1994 ISRO espionage case
Nambi Narayanan arrested in 1994 ISRO espionage case
The arrest was based on a video statement from a colleague who claimed that he and Narayanan received money for transferring rocket engine drawings and documents to two Maldivian women, Maryam Rashida and Fauzia Hassan, They were suspected of being spies.
corruption charges
When intelligence agencies raided Sasikumaran’s house, they found that besides several houses in Thiruvananthapuram, Sasikumaran had 1.5 acres of land in an industrial area in Tamil Nadu. The CBI estimated his assets to be worth over Rs 55 lakh and detained him under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Facts/Trivia
- In 2022, Rocketry: Nambi Effect, a biographical drama based on the lives of Nambi Narayanan and D Sasikumaran, was released.
- Sasikumaran was detained after police found the phone numbers of his residence and office in Mariam’s diary. It later turned out that Sasikumaran had indeed met Mariam through their mutual friend Chandrasekhar. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has an engagement with Chandrasekhar related to cryogenic projects. Apparently, Chandrasekhar and Maryam met at the Thiruvananthapuram airport, after which he took her to Sasikumaran for a consultation with his doctor wife.
- Initially, the Kerala police dismissed Sasikumaran’s links with Maryam, calling it an “irrelevant sex scandal”. However, after intelligence agencies arrested Maryam’s associate Fauzia Hasan and interrogated the two, they concluded that Sasikumaran and Maryam may have been involved in a major ISRO spy network.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education