THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: One of the senior-most officers of the Enforcement Directorate has rung up Kerala Police Chief Loknath Behera over the Crime Branch registering a case against ED officers who are probing the gold smuggling and reverse hawala cases.
Sources said that an officer of the rank of Joint Director had called Behera last week and apprised the top cop of the apprehensions the central agency had regarding the state police’s action. Sources revealed that the Joint Director expressed concerns on the police’s decision to book ED officials and requested the cooperation of the police in carrying out the ongoing probe in both the cases.
In its FIR filed before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court in Ernakulam, the Crime Branch had accused unnamed ED officials of six charges, including conspiracy, fabricating documents and forcing a person to give false statement. As per the FIR, ED officials who had questioned Swapna Suresh on August 12 and 13 last year had forced her to give false statements against the CM with an intention to implicate him in the case. Meanwhile, Behera preferred silence when asked whether he had received such a call. The Enforcement Directorate officials, sources said, were of the view that the state police were overstepping their legal powers and targeting the officers due to political compulsion.
The Crime Branch on Thursday had registered a case against unnamed ED officials for allegedly arm-twisting gold-smuggling case accused Swapna Suresh to testify against the chief minister. The case was registered on the basis of the legal opinion that was sought by the government after Additional SP E S Bijumon in his report pointed out that the ED officials had tried to turn Swapna against the CM.
Bijumon had probed the case pertaining to the leak of an audio clip reportedly belonging to Swapna while she was in prison. In the clip, she was heard saying that the agencies were putting pressure on her to give statements against the CM while she was in their custody.