Days after the NIA (National Investigation Agency) court in Kochi denied bail to Swapna Suresh, key accused in Kerala gold smuggling case, the Economic Offences Court considering the parallel probe by the Customs Department on Tuesday, also rejected her bail plea.
The Customs, in their arguments, said that given Swapna’s wide ranging contacts with higher ups, granting bail to her could be detrimental to the investigation. This was accepted by the court.
Swapna was arrested by the National Investigation Agency, probing the suspected terror links of the case, from Bengaluru, along with another key accused Sandeep Nair, on July 11. She was later arrested by the Customs Department and the Enforcement Directorate and has undergone multiple rounds of questioning from all the agencies.
Meanwhile, the NIA team on Wednesday night arrived for the second time at the State Secretariat to find out more details from the State Protocol office on the statement made by Kerala Higher Education Minister KT Jaleel about receiving Ramzan food kits and copies of Holy Quran from the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram. This is being alleged to be in violation of official protocol.
According to the code of conduct for state ministers, they cannot accept gifts which are valued at over Rs 5,000. Besides, the rules are clear that all such items should be routed only through the Ministry of External Affairs and not given directly to either state or Union ministers.
The controversies surrounding the protocol violation in accepting free food kits from the UAE Consulate came up when documents of Swapna Suresh’s phone calls showed calls made to the Minister.
The gold smuggling case was unearthed when PS Sarith, a former employee of the UAE Consulate, was arrested by the Customs on July 5 while he was allegedly facilitating smuggling of 30 kg gold in a camouflaged diplomatic baggage to Thiruvananthapuram from Dubai.
The Left government faced the heat as M Sivasankar IAS, who was the Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was alleged to be closely knit with some key accused in the case.
The IAS officer was subsequently removed as the Principal Secretary and also from the post of Secretary of IT Department and was then suspended by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
Watch gold seized by Customs: