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Gold smuggling case: Kerala CMO releases old video to counter Swapna’s charges
The video uploaded on Vijayan’s social media handle has two sections, Suresh’s threat to expose Vijayan’s ‘lie’ that he did not know her on Tuesday and the CM’s old statement saying that he knew her only as a consulate staff.
The chief minister’s office (CMO) on Wednesday released a two-year old video in a bid to counter claims of Swapna Suresh — an accused in the gold smuggling case — about sharing close contact with Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his family before the case surfaced.
The said video is of a press meet in which Vijayan can be seen saying that Suresh had visited his official residence several times along with the then UAE Consulate General for official purposes. HT has seen the video.
The video uploaded on Vijayan’s social media handle has two sections, Suresh’s threat to expose Vijayan’s ‘lie’ that he did not know her on Tuesday and the CM’s old statement saying that he knew her only as a consulate staff.
In the press meet the CM had given the statement as reply to a question on October 13, 2020 at a time when the gold smuggling case had surfaced and his principal secretary M Sivasankar was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate.
In the video clip, a journalist was heard asking him whether Suresh had visited Cliff House, CM’s official residence in Thiruvananthapuram, several times to which Vijayan replied that she had come many times along with the consulate general for official purposes.
“Whenever the consulate general had made a visit to the Cliff House, she had accompanied him as his secretary. There is nothing unnatural for a chief minister to meet a consulate general,” he had said in the video.
When the reporter again asked whether he had introduced senior IAS officer M Sivasankar, who was then his principal secretary, as the point of contact for the matters related to the consulate, Vijayan said he did not remember it but there was nothing unusual about it even if he had said so as he was his secretary.
His office came up with the old video, a day after Suresh told media that when she was in jail, the CM had said that he did not know the “controversial woman.” She said he had “lied”, and she had met him and his family members several times at the Cliff House and discussed several issues. “He might have forgotten all these things. But I will remind him about those sessions with him and family members through the media as and when necessary,” she told newsmen in Kochi on Tuesday.
Many see the latest move by the CMO as a damage control following the allegations by Suresh after she gave a statement under Section 164 of the CrPC. Due to the ongoing controversy, the state is in the midst of a series of protests called by opposition parties calling for CM’s resignation. On Monday, two Youth Congress workers protested on board a flight in which the CM was travelling from Kannur to the state capital on Monday.
The smuggling case came to light in July 2020 after 30kg of gold hidden in a package camouflaged as a diplomatic consignment addressed to the UAE consulate was seized by the customs department. On June 6, Suresh had given a confidential statement before a magistrate in Kochi. Later, she told newsmen that “CM knew about everything and heavy biryani pots were taken to his house from the consulate several times.” Police had registered a case against her based on the compliant of former minister K T Jaleel, who was questioned several times by the ED and customs after the case came up.
