Kerala police on Thursday ordered an investigation after Swapna Suresh, the main defendant in the Kerala gold smuggling case, in an alleged voicemail claim that the Directorate of Enforcement was pressuring her to appoint the minister in chief Pinarayi Vijayan in the scandal with the incentive to make it approving.
The voicemail was released by a web portal Thursday morning and was soon widely shared. Suresh also alleged that the DE forced her to sign her statement and did not allow her to read it.
Shortly after voicemail became a trend and sparked controversy, Police (Prison) Director General Rishiraj Singh ordered that the incident be investigated.
Police Deputy Inspector General Ajay Kumar, who is investigating the new development, said Swapna Suresh agreed it was his voice, but said it was not sent from jail. During questioning, he reportedly told the official that he did not remember exactly when he said this. Reserved under the Cofeposa (Law on Preservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities), it is now housed in the women’s prison in Thiruvananthapuram.
Earlier, another defendant in the case, M. Sivasankar, a high-ranking bureaucrat and former secretary of the CM, also made a similar accusation in court. The emergency department had denied it. A senior official who is part of the multi-agency investigation said it was a tactic to pressure central agencies.
The CPI (M) state secretary issued a statement saying that central agencies were interested in implicating the CM office in the smuggling case and that the party will oppose the measure.
The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, V Muraleedhran, also stepped into the last row, calling it a drama promulgated by the CM office.
“The CM praised the central agencies all day, but turned against them when it also started investigating their office,” he said.
The opposition Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said the voicemail was a move to sabotage the ongoing investigation into the gold smuggling case and sought a high-level investigation into it.
Two days ago, the BJP state president K Surendran had alleged that many people were meeting Suresh in jail and were looking for the list of people who knew Suresh in jail since she was housed there in the second week of October.
“The CM office is behind the latest development,” said Mullapally Ramachandran, head of the congressional unit. He also said that Vijayan was scoring an own goal when the investigation was about to come to him.
Two weeks ago, CM Raveendran, another secretary to the prime minister, was summoned by the Emergency Department, but was unable to appear after testing positive for Covid-19. Raveendran is reported to be very close to the CM.
The gold smuggling case came to light on July 5 after Customs seized 30 kg of the yellow metal from a package disguised as a diplomatic shipment headed to the UAE consulate.
Subsequently, PS Sarith Kumar, a former consulate public relations officer who came to receive the luggage, was arrested by customs.
Two other suspects, Swapna Suresh and her accomplice Sandip Nair, were arrested at their hideout in Bengaluru five days later by the National Investigation Agency. The bureaucrat Sivasankar was suspended after his alleged ties to Suresh emerged. Five central agencies are investigating the case in which 36 people were arrested.
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