THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Crime Branch team investigating a complaint filed by an Air India staffer, who had alleged that signatures of 16 female employees of AISATS were forged to implicate him in a sexual harassment case, has found evidence of the involvement of Swapna Suresh in the case. Swapna will be arraigned as the second accused.The case pertains to forging of signatures of woman employees of Air India-SATS that were used to file a fake sexual harassment complaint against an Air India whistleblower, L S Sibu.
The Crime Branch had earlier arraigned former AISATS vice-president Binoy Jacob as the first accused. Crime Branch sources said there were enough pieces of evidence against Swapna and she would be arraigned as an accused soon. Swapna was summoned to the Crime Branch office before lockdown and her statements were recorded. Crime Branch chief Tomin J Thachankary confirmed that Swapna will be booked and said the probe team will file a report in this regard before the High Court.
Regarding Swapna’s involvement in the case, Crime Branch sources said she had ably assisted Binoy to prepare the fake complaint and forged signatures of 16 woman staff in it. The case was first probed by the Crime Detachment Cell and was later taken over by the Crime Branch. The complainant, Sibu, said had the authorities acted on his complaint on time, this embarrassment to the government could have been avoided.
“I had to face a lot of issues because of the evil action of Binoy and Swapna. I was shunted out to Hyderabad and all my savings had been spent on legal expenses. I had filed the complaint in 2016 and if there was a proper probe on my complaint, the true designs of the accused could have been revealed. Apart from salvaging my pride and life, it could have averted the present embarrassment that the accused has brought to the government, the (Thiruvananthapuram) airport and people,” he said.