The Nationwide Investigation Company (NIA) probing the Kerala gold smuggling case questioned Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s former principal secretary M Sivasankar for 9 hours on Monday earlier than letting him go together with a path to look earlier than it once more on Tuesday.
That is the third time that spherical that Sivasankar has been questioned. The Customs division was the primary to query him earlier than the NIA did as soon as.
A senior IAS officer, who was very near the CM, he was suspended from service after his alleged affiliation with Swapna Suresh, one of many accused within the gold smuggling case got here to mild.
After Monday’s questioning in Kochi, Sivasankar’s counsel S Rajeev stated an intense media path was on and plenty of experiences rising lately have been removed from reality. He stated Sivasankar was cooperating totally with the probe staff and had nothing to cover. The as soon as highly effective principal secretary turned embroiled within the controversy after the seizure of 30 kg gold from a consignment that got here within the identify of an worker of the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram on July 5. Later the case was handed over to the NIA.
After the seizure, there have been experiences that the CM’s workplace allegedly pressurized the Customs to launch the consignment. Sivasankar reportedly informed investigators that although he knew a number of the accused he was not conscious of their smuggling background. There are additionally experiences that he was instrumental in appointing Swapna Suresh because the enterprise improvement supervisor with the Kerala Info Expertise Infrastructure Restricted