Menu

D Sasikumaran Age, Wife, Family, Biography & More

Quick Info→
Age: 80 Years
Hometown: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Marital Status: Married

D Sasikumaran

Bio/Wiki
NicknameSasi [1]Google Books- Ready To Fire: How India and I Survived the ISRO Spy Case
ProfessionAerospace Engineer
Known forBeing falsely accused in ISRO Espionage Case (1994)
Personal Life
Date of BirthYear, 1942
Age (as of 2022)80 Years
NationalityIndian
HometownThiruvananthapuram, Kerala
ControversiesFlagged by the ISRO for Doubtful Integrity
D Sasikumaran and Nambi Narayanan were accused of working to further their private interests while still at the ISRO. While Narayanan was privately counselling a contractor with a lot of foreign-exchange dealings, Sasikumaran was planning to set up a private firm. The acts were in clear violation of the 1964 code of conduct for government employees; hence, the scientists were flagged by the ISRO for having doubtful integrity, running private businesses, and possessing unaccounted wealth, a decade before the 1994 espionage case broke out. [2]SCRIBD

ISRO Espionage Case (1994)
In 1994, Sasikumaran, his colleague Nambi Narayanan, a Bangalore-based businessman named S.K. Sharma, K. Chandrasekhar (the Indian representative of the Russian Space Agency Glavkosmos), and Maldivian women Mariam Rasheeda and Fousiya Hasan were booked by the Kerala police on charges of espionage. The police claimed that it had credible information and damning material to show that Narayanan and Sasikumaran were stealing and selling rocket technology secrets to Pakistan; meanwhile, the two Maldivian women were being used as a conduit in the secret mission. In May 1996, the CBI submitted a report before the chief judicial magistrate claiming that the espionage case was false and that there was no evidence to back the charges. The court accepted the report and discharged all the accused. [3]Hindustan Times

Booked under Corruption Charges
After Sasikumaran's arrest in ISRO Espionage Case (1994), the CBI raided his house and discovered that apart from a couple of houses in Thiruvananthapuram, he also owned 1.5 acres of land in an industrial estate in Tamil Nadu. The CBI estimated his assets to be worth over Rs 55 lakh and detained him under the Prevention of Corruption Act. [4]India Today
Relationships & More
Marital StatusMarried
Affairs/GirlfriendsIn the aftermath of his arrest in 1994 in an espionage case, he was rumoured to have an affair with Mariam Rasheeda, a Maldivian woman who was suspected to be a spy. Reportedly, Sasikumaran had met her twice in her hotel room. Kerala Police alerted IB about the same on 15 October 1994 after which the news of his alleged affair surfaced in the media. [5]Google Books- Classified: Hidden Truths in the ISRO Spy Story
Mariam Rasheeda
Family
Wife/SpouseName Not Known (Physician)

Note: In 1994, she served as an assistant professor at the Medical College Thiruvananthapuram.

Some Lesser Known Facts About D Sasikumaran

  • D Sasikumaran is an Indian aerospace engineer and former ISRO scientist who was arrested in 1994 after being accused of false espionage charges.
  • After completing his formal education, he started working as a scientist at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
  • Sasikumaran was serving as the Deputy Director of the cryogenic technology division of the ISRO when he was arrested in 1994. Simultaneously, he was also in charge of the cryogenic technology transfer from Russia.
  • After he was rumoured to have an affair with a spy woman, he was transferred to Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad.
  • After charges against him in the espionage case were dismissed in 1996, Sasikumaran started working as an engineering consultant in Thiruvananthapuram.
  • Sasikumaran was arrested after the police found his residence and office telephone numbers in Mariam’s diary. Later, it turned out that Sasikumaran had ties with Mariam via their common friend Chandrasekhar. Apparently, ISRO had ties with Chandrasekhar related to the cryogenic project. Chandrasekhar and Mariam had made acquaintance at the Thiruvananthapuram airport after which he had given the phone number to Mariam for a consultation with Sasikumaran’s wife who was a doctor.
  •  Unlike his colleague Nambi Narayanan, who claimed compensation of ₹50 lakh, Sasikumaran was determined that he would not claim any compensation. While talking about the same to the media, he said,

    The tax payers money should not be used for paying compensation for the misadventures of officials and the conspiracy hatched by some big bosses. The compensation should be recovered from the erring officials.”