

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: NIA officials on Saturday inspected the flat of M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to the chief minister, at the ‘Heather Towers’ near Secretariat in connection with the sensational gold smuggling case. The sleuths reached the capital from Kochi in the morning and conducted a detailed search in the flat of the bureaucrat based on the statements of key accused Swapna Suresh and Sarith.
Sources said the officers verified some files which he had kept in the flat. They also checked the visitor’s register and CCTV footage. The team arrived at the flat by noon and continued their inspection till 4 pm. Earlier, the team had visited the apartment along with the accused Swapna and Sandeep Nair as part of evidence collection as they had revealed that the conspiracy to smuggle gold was hatched in a flat rented by them in the apartment. However, they did not raid the flat on that day. On Wednesday, the NIA team inspected the server room and CCTV visuals from Secretariat.