Gold smuggling case: Police to probe if anyone helped Swapna Suresh escape

A senior police officer said that the dept would take a close look at the allegations that are appearing in media against some officers and initiate action against them if the charges are proved.
Swapna Suresh (Photo | Express)
Swapna Suresh (Photo | Express)

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Stung by allegations that they did not do enough to locate gold smuggling case suspects Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair, who eventually escaped to Bengaluru and were taken into custody by NIA, the state police will now probe if anyone from the force helped the duo flee.

The police had come under fire after the news emerged that the Swapna and Sandeep had managed to cross the Kerala border to reach Bengaluru.The allegation against the police was that they did not track Swapna and Sandeep, who were on the run, and some officers had connections with them.

A senior police officer told TNIE that the department would take a close look at the allegations that are appearing in media against some officers and initiate action against them if the charges are proved.
“We’ll check the veracity of the allegations levelled against the police in this case,” the officer said. “The NIA has already started the probe in this case. We won’t interfere with the working of central agencies but will check on our own whether the allegations raised against some officers have any truth. We want to know whether they received any help from any person in service or not,” said the officer.

Meanwhile, state police chief Loknath Behera said the police have been cooperating with the Customs and other agencies who are probing the case.“The Customs had asked for some details, documents and CCTV visuals. We have given them whatever they had asked for,” Behera said.He added the police have always helped the central agencies with information on various illegal activities whenever they came across them.

“Many cases might be happening outside our jurisdiction. Still, if any information is available with us, we never keep it to ourselves. We pass it on to the concerned agencies,” he said. Behera added that the state police had no idea as to how the duo had reached Benguluru from Kerala.

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