Kerala Gold Smuggling: CM's ex-Principal Secretary grilled for 10 hours, 3 more arrested

The Customs department grilled M Sivasankar IAS, former Principal Secretary to Kerala CMO and IT secretary, who allegedly has close links with the accused of gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair.

Interrogated for 10 hours

The Customs raided the residence of Sivasankar last week and also obtained some CCTV footages from various places where he met Swapna Suresh and her crime partners in the last few months. The Customs also have gathered the copy of call records between both of them.

There was anticipation initially that he will be arrested and produced before the magistrate on Wednesday for further interrogation, but he was let off around 2.30 am on Wednesday after 10 hours of questioning by assistant Commissioner of Customs investigation wing Ramamurthy.

Various questions regarding the appointment of Swapna Suresh and including her dubious fake education certificates were also asked according to the sources and whether someone recommended her for this job of operations manager in the government based KSITI Ltd. 

The neighbours of Swapna Suresh have also seen Sivasankar visiting the residence of Swapna Suresh and the CCTV footage which the wing has gathered also has proved that. Her house has allegedly been a place of planning for the whole smuggling operations since Sandeep Nair was also part of the meetings.

READ | Gold smuggling case:Kerala IAS officer appears before Customs

Govt official's role cannot be ruled out

However, the Customs officials let off Sivasankar after 10 hours of investigation and asked him to appear whenever they want to question him in the case, after getting the counter statements from other accused. Last week, the Customs department's preliminary report accessed by Republic TV said that the role of top government officials can't be ruled out in this matter and that's why he is been grilled.

READ | Kerala gold smuggling: Chief Secy to probe link between accused & CMO, CM assures action

This has put pressure on Kerala Chief Minister since the whole smuggling allegedly happened under his nose for a while, which has made the opposition parties demand his resignation.

READ | Kerala gold scandal: Swapna Suresh and Kerala Min exchanged calls, records under scanner

Meanwhile, three more people were arrested, Hamjath Ali, Mohd Shafi and Jalaal by the Customs department in connection with the gold smuggling case, after the questioning of Sivasankar. All three will be produced before the magistrate Court in Ernakulam on Wednesday. No details on their background has as yet come to light.

READ | Kerala Gold Smuggling: Cong calls for CM Pinarayi Vijayan's resignation, seeks CBI probe