KOCHI: As Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala has denied writing the controversial letter to the Congress High Command, the incident draws parallel to the controversial missive in the name of then minister K V Thomas, following the group war in Congress leading to the arrest of five including an MLA and some journalists, 13 years ago.
The case which was later termed as “Surya TV forgery case” was an outcome of the infighting in the party and had done irreparable damage to the Congress. In June 2002 Surya TV beamed a letter supposedly from the additional director-general of police (Vigilance) sent to the chief minister’s office. It contained a paragraph in which then state Tourism Minister K V Thomas was linked to a Rs 330 crore hawala scam. However, the next day the state Government declared the document as forged. The reporter of Surya TV surrendered to the police after a month in hibernation. He had confessed that it was Sobhana George who had given him the document. Four among the seven accused were journalists with Sobhana then an MLA as the first accused in the list.
“The letter was forged in order to defame K V Thomas who had switched his loyalty to ‘A ‘group after getting the cabinet berth in the quota of I group,” says the opening sentence of the First Information Report, a copy of which is in possession of ‘Express’.
However, the case was closed citing lack of evidence during the term of last LDF government.