The Kerala government today ordered the release of Mariam Rasheeda, a Maldivian national detained under the National Security Act, from the Viyyur central jail.

The order was issued in view of Wednesday's Supreme Court judgment in the ISRO espionage case.

Rasheeda, who was arrested on October 9, 1994, had been a detenue under the NSA since September last year.

For Rasheeda, hounded by the press and the police in Kerala as a spy who came in from across the seas to fleece the country of its vital space and defence secrets, the decision means deliverance from a frustratingly interminable nightmare.

Rasheeda was the only accused in the Indian Space Research Organisation espionage case who was still behind bars.

While her compatriot, Fouzia Hasan, was released on December 12 last year on the expiry of her one-year term as an NSA detenue, the Indians arraigned with her had all been freed long back and reinstated in their earlier positions. They included space scientists Nambi Narayanan and Sasikumaran, Bangalore-based businessmen S K Sharma and Chandrasekharan and Inspector General of Police Raman Srivastava.

Rasheeda was released on bail by a local court in September last year, but the state government was apparently bent upon keeping her behind bars. She was served with detention orders under the NSA in the court compound itself as soon as she came out of the court room as a free person, and taken back to the Viyyur jail.

She, however, faces a defamation case filed by two police inspectors who first arrested her for overstaying her visa on October 9, 1994. She is due to be produced before a court on May 5 in connection with the case.

The great Indian spy story that marred the reputations of many and subjected them to enormous physical and mental anguish, sullied the image of some of the investigating agencies and even sparked the downfall of the then Congress chief minister, K Karunakaran, had a most innocuous beginning.

A special branch inspector, Vijayan, reportedly had a tiff with a Maldivian woman, Fouzia Hassan, over a visa extension for her compatriot, Mariam Rasheeda. Vijayan promptly booked Rasheeda for visa overstay and raided her hotel room. Among the seizures made was a diary that contained the telephone numbers of some space scientists.

The inspector, called 'Smart' Vijayan by his colleagues, found it intriguing. One thing led to another and soon the Kerala police had in its lap its hottest spy case ever.

One after the other, all the accused in the case were arrested by early December 1994, when the case was handed over to the CBI. The crime branch of the Kerala police, headed by deputy inspector general of police Siby Mathews, had earlier found the involvement of IGP Raman Srivastava in the case. Srivastava was questioned by the CBI in December itself.

There was a clamour for the IGP's suspension, a demand that was consistently rejected by Karunakaran, on the plea that there was no evidence against the official. But Karunakaran's vacillation proved costly for him.

When the Kerala high court later found substance in the allegations of involvement of the official in the spy case, the government was forced to place him under suspension. Karunakaran's detractors in the Congress and some of his coalition partners found the Srivastava issue a godsend to tilt at him. In the final showdown in mid-March 1995, Karunakaran resigned as chief minister.

In retrsopect, all the hullabaloo about the spy case and its political fallout looked unnecessary as the CBI, after months of investigation, found that there was no substance in the charge of spying. This was, however, at variance with the findings of other investigating agencies like the Kerala crime branch, the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing.

Despite the scepticism with which many viewed its decision, the CBI filed in the designated court a closure petition in May 1996.

With the case closed and no charge proved against any of the accused, the two scientists were reinstated in service and the two Bangalore businessmen went back to their business. IGP Srivastava had earlier been reinstated in service on the basis of an order of the Central Administrative Tribunal, but he was not given a police posting. After waiting for months for a posting, he was appointed as managing director of a government undertaking. Incidentally it was only on the day of the Supreme Court judgment that Srivastava got a police posting, as IGP in charge of armed battalions and traffic.