Seasoned interrogators from the police and Intelligence Bureau (IB) had a tough time dealing with Buela M Sam, the 44-year-old woman who entered the high security ISRO headquarters with a fake ID card, sources say.
Reason: Buela frequently changed her statements and her language. Buela’s husband Alex Thomas had told the police that she was under medication for severe depression. Now, a source in the investigating team admitted that they actually had a tough time extracting information from her.
“She apparently used to spend most of her time reading books on science and seems to believe she is a senior scientist. She speaks little and most of her answers are one-liners. We ask her 10 questions and she answers only one or two, often contradicting herself and testing interrogators’ patience,” the source said.
“She knows Malayalam, Hindi and English. During questioning, we had to ensure that officials knowing these languages were present. For, we never knew which language she would start speaking. If we asked her something in English, she would answer in Malayalam and if we switch to Malayalam she would speak in Hindi, thus breaking the flow of questioning,” the source added.
“In fact, because she gave us wrong information we ended up questioning an innocent man. When we asked her who told her to enter ISRO premises, she initially named one Anthony Thomas. When we brought him to the city and asked her to identify him, she said he was not the one she had referred to.
Asked why she named him, she said, “What should I do if you people keep on questioning me? I just dropped his name,” the source said. Another interesting bit making the rounds is how the Intelligence Bureau officials gave up on Buela.
“In cases concerning national security, usually IB officials complete questioning and pass on information to the police. But in this case they gave up, perplexed by Buela’s behaviour,” the source said.