Fouziyya Hassan, acquitted in ISRO espionage case, passes away

Fouziyya Hassan, one of the two Maldivian women falsely implicated along with scientist Nambi Narayanan in the ISRO spy case nearly three decades ago, has died. Hassan, who was also a popular actress in Maldives, died at a hospital in Sri Lanka on Tuesday morning. She was 79.

She died after being hospitalised with chest pain, news website sun.mv reported.

Maldives Foreign Minister Abdulla Shahid condoled the demise of Hassan.


"It is with deep sadness that we hear the news of the passing away of Fouziyya Hassan, who has made a tremendous contribution to the broadcasting, arts and film industry. May God grant the family patience and may God grant the deceased Paradise. Amen!," Shahid, who is also president of the United Nations General Assembly, tweeted in Dhivehi language.

Dhivehi is the official language of the island nation.

Hassan was arrested and detained along with another Maldivian woman Mariam Rasheeda and scientist Nambi Narayanan in Kerala in 1994 over the allegations of transfer of certain confidential documents on the space programme of India to foreign countries.

They were acquitted by the court after the CBI, in its probe at that time, had held that top police officials in Kerala were responsible for their arrest.

The case was a big political controversy at the time with a section of leaders in the Congress targeting then Kerala Chief Minister K Karunakaran.

The issue was one of the major reasons that led to the resignation of Karunakaran as Chief Minister.