Chennai: Senior Indian space scientist from Odisha, Tapan Misra, has levelled shocking allegations stating that he was poisoned with a deadly chemical on May 23, 2017 at the headquarters of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) when he had gone there to attend a promotion interview.
In a Facebook post, Misra wrote: “We, in ISRO, occasionally heard about highly suspicious death of Prof. Vikram Sarabhai in 1971. Also heard occasional doubts about sudden death of Dr. S Srinivasan, Director of VSSC (Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre) in 1999. Case of Shri Nambinarayanan in 1994 is well known. But I never thought that I will be at the receiving end of such mystery.”
“I was poisoned with deadly Arsenic Trioxide on 23rd May 2017, during promotion interview from Sci/Eng SF to SG in ISRO HQ at Bangalore. Fatal dose was probably mixed with chutney along with Dosai, in snacks after lunch.”
“What followed was nightmare lasting for almost two years…Severe loss of blood to the tune of 30-40 per cent through anal bleeding. I barely could come back from Bangalore and was rushed to Zydus Cadila hospital in Ahmedabad,” Misra said.
“It was followed by severe breathing difficulty, unusual skin eruptions and skin shedding, loss of nails on feet and hands, terrible neurological issues due to hypoxia, skeletal pain, unusual sensations, one suspected heart attack and arsenic depositions and fungal infections on every inch of skin and internal organs,” he added.
“Famed forensic specialist, Dr. Sudhir Gupta told me that in his whole career, for the first time he was seeing a live specimen of a survivor of assassination attempt with fatal dose of assassination grade molecular As2O3. Otherwise his experience was limited to cadavers,” Misra said.
According to Misra, one of the Directors of ISRO centres had told him on June 5, 2017 of the possibility of poison given to me. “Probably, I guess, he witnessed poison mixing in my food.”
“On 7th June, MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) security agency personnels met me and alerted me of Arsenic poisoning. I am thankful to them, as their info helped doctors to focus on exact remedy instead of scratching their heads with unusual signatures of my ailment,” he said in his post.
“It is a colourless, odourless, tasteless suspension and hence cannot even be suspected. It gets absorbed through stomach during food ingestion, kills RBCs (red blood cells) immediately to such large extent that the fine blood vessels are clogged, leading to heart attacks and strokes within two to three hours and the victim can easily be passed of as heart attack death,” he said.
“The motive appears to be espionage attack, embedded in the Government set up, to remove a scientist with critical contribution of very large military and commercial significance, like expertise in building Synthetic Aperture Radar,” he said.
“I pleaded with two successive Chairmen to help me in getting justice. Kirankumar tried his best to convince me that my earlier case of squamous cell carcinoma is resurrecting. I personally talked to Dr. Kasturirangan and Shri Madhavan Nair and they developed cold feet,” Misra said.
In his post, Misra also that he was “bombarded with hundreds of threatening emails to keep my mouth shut”, while he had barely escaped from a “massive explosive incident, in which Rs 100 cr lab was destroyed. This happened on 3rd May 2018”.
“I declined and he left my office at 1430 hrs. And my thirty plus years contributing career was consigned to sinecure position at 1630 hrs. on the same day. I was removed from all responsibilities, including SAC Directorship,” Misra said.
According to him, two incidents convinced him that the mysterious people who are after him and probably going to hit him hard before his retirement at the end of this month.
“All the signatures point to deliberate poisoning of my mentally challenged son with Covid 19. The poor boy, who cannot even speak or eat or carry out hygiene activities himself, had to be hospitalized for 10 days, followed by months of complications,” he alleged.
Misra however said: “But these mysterious men are much more equipped, trained, lethal and determined to snuff out living witness of the most shameful incident of Indian science.”
“I put forward to Government, intellectuals and fellow scientists and my classmates and teachers, spread across the world, that all efforts should be made to keep me and my family safe and punish these mysterious men,” he said.
