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No role in bank fraud, says former CPI(M) MP
Former CPI(M) Lok Sabha MP PK Biju underlined that if summoned by the ED as part of probe into the case, he would certainly go and clarify his position
KOCHI: Former CPI(M) Lok Sabha MP PK Biju on Sunday rejected allegations of involvement in the fraud at the Karuvannur Service Cooperative Bank raised by Congress leader and former MLA Anil Akkara.
Citing a remand report of the Enforcement Directorate, which is probing the financial fraud at the bank, Akkara had said on Saturday that P Sathish Kumar, an accused in the case, was the mentor of Biju and that the duo had financial dealings. The former Congress MLA from Wadakkanchery had also alleged that Biju was part of an internal CPI(M) panel that inquired into the scam at the bank and that the report the panel submitted said nothing about the involvement of Kumar.
Responding to the allegations, Biju said on Sunday, “Anil Akkara’s claims are baseless and politically motivated. If there is any evidence of my involvement, he must produce it before the media. He is peddling lies.”
Biju, who served as the Lok Sabha MP from Alathur between 2009 and 2019, added, “I have not made any kind of involvement in the financial dealings at Karuvannur bank. I don’t know Kumar and I have not spoken to him over the phone or exchanged WhatsApp messages. For us, the people and the party are mentors. We don’t need to work under the mentorship of financial fraudsters.”
The former MP also said neither he nor his wife own a house or a plot of land. “I stay in a flat owned by the party,” he said.
He underlined that if summoned by the ED as part of probe into the case, he would certainly go and clarify his position.
The ED on September 4 arrested Sathish Kumar and Kiran PP under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002 in the bank fraud case. “Kiran was the beneficiary of illegally sanctioned loans in the names of benamis using benami properties and thereby generated proceeds of crime to the tune of ₹48.57 crore including principal and interest which remained unpaid to the bank,” the agency had said.
Sathish Kumar has also committed the scheduled offence and generated proceeds of crime of more than ₹14 crore in the form of illegal loans from the bank, the agency said.
The agency has been probing the case where benami loans were sanctioned to non-members of the CPM-controlled bank often by mortgaging the properties of poor members without their knowledge. The money to the tune of ₹150 crore has been swindled out of the bank, ED has said.
