KOCHI: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), probing the money trail in the gold smuggling case, on Friday said main accused Swapna Suresh had “considerable influence” at the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) and the chief minister’s former principal secretary, M Sivasankar, need to be interrogated.The ED made this submission in a petition, seeking the custody extension of accused Sarith P S, Swapna and Sandeep Nair, filed at the Special Court for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases in Kochi.
The ED submitted that Swapna had revealed about her closeness with the bureaucrat. The ED, which had recorded the former principal secretary’s statement two weeks ago in Kochi, also claimed that Sivasankar had held meetings with Swapna in the UAE when the “state machinery” was also there from October 17 to 21, 2018 as part of seeking assistance after the 2018 flood.
“On Thursday when she was questioned, she revealed her closeness with the former principal secretary. The secretary was fully aware that her integrity was dubious. This has led to a situation for further questioning Sivasankar. All these revelations require more questioning of Swapna and the other two accused in custody. It is revealed that she had considerable influence in the Chief Minister’s Office,” the petition said. T A Unnikrishnan, Special Prosecutor of ED, also said Sivasankar’s role is being probed.
However, Special Court Judge Kausar Edapagath was not impressed by the ED’s demand for the custody of the accused for the third time. He asked the ED’s counsel to convince the court about the reasons for demanding the same. The court orally observed that Sivasankar’s links with the accused persons were already revealed in the probe conducted by the NIA and Customs. He was also interrogated by both agencies several times.
Swapna’s counsel Geo Paul submitted that Swapna had given statements to other agencies about her links with Sivasankar and it was not a new fact in the case. He alleged that his client was mentally tortured by ED officials in custody. According to Geo Paul, Swapna told him that she was interrogated from 11pm to 6am. She was interrogated for six hours at a stretch without the presence of a lady officer. On this, the court said if the accused complains of any torture, it will direct the authorities concerned to register a case.
When the court asked the accused whether they were tortured, all said no. The court then directed the ED to interrogate the accused only between 10am and 5pm. Similarly, there should be a break in between and the presence of a lady officer should be ensured when Swapna is interrogated. Though the ED sought custody of the accused for four more days, the court granted only two days.