ISRO scientist claims he was poisoned three years ago in an ‘espionage attack’

Tapan Misra, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) scientist and former director of space application has claimed that he was poisoned by deadly Arsenic Trioxide three years ago.

He was poisoned on May 23, 2017, during a promotion interview at ISRO headquarters in Bengaluru.

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In a Facebook post titled "Long Kept Secret", Senior Advisor ISRO, Mishra claimed that in July 2017, Home Affairs security personnel met him and alerted him of arsenic poisoning and helped doctors to focus on the exact remedy.

Mishra said he later suffered from health issues including severe breathing difficulty, unusual skin eruptions, skin shedding and fungal infections.

Mishra said, "Someone definitely wanted to do some harm to ISRO. The only solution is to catch the culprit and punish them. It's not possible to provide security to 2,000 scientists."

"I have posted everything on Facebook regarding the incident. I do not know the reason behind this but I can only guess that it might be a consequence of working on a critical technology. There might be other reasons as well," he added.

Mishra further said, it was important to bring this in public domain in order to save other scientists in future."People take advantage of the silence. Agencies are looking into it. Surely it was no work of a street thug but some sophisticated espionage agency inside our organisation," he added.

(With inputs from agencies)