In what could be another blow to the ruling Pinarayi Vijayan government, a report submitted by the Customs Department to the Centre, probing the gold smuggling case has named Left supported MLA, Karat Razak in the case, who has denied the charges.
Razak’s name surfaced after Soumya, wife of prime accused Sandip Nair, revealed his alleged role in the gold smuggling case and Razak’s links with the gold smuggling gang.
Reacting to the report, Razak said he had never ever seen any of the accused and had no clue of the things happening.
“If the ongoing probe goes correctly, I will never even be called by any probe agency, but if there is going to be a conspiracy, then maybe I will be called. Ever since I changed my political affiliations, I have been besieged with all sorts of canards. I categorically deny having ever seen or met any of these people,” said Razak.
Razak shifted his loyalties from the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) towards the Left and he won the Koduvally Assembly seat in Kozhikode district in the 2016 Assembly polls by a margin of 573 votes by defeating the IUML candidate.
“I have no gold smuggling business at all and have no knowledge of these names, whom I have heard only through the media,” added Razak.
State BJP president K.Surendran said that it was he who first revealed this name and that too almost two months back.
“Those who know about the happenings also know that Razak is equal to State CPI-M secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan. One half of this gold smuggling involves Vijayan’s office and the other half involves the CPI-M state party headquarters in the state capital,” said Surendran.
Vijayan has been facing criticism ever since the gold smuggling case surfaced after the arrest of P.S.Sarith, a former employee of the UAE Consulate here on July 5 by the Customs Department, after baggage to the UAE Consulate containing gold was found.
Swapna Suresh, another prime accused, was also an employee of the UAE Consulate and later moved on to a plush salaried job at the Space Park, which is under Vijayan.
Following the arrest of Sarith, Swapna and her business associate Sandip Nair were on the run, but were soon arrested from Bengaluru by the NIA.
Later, it also was revealed that Swapna and Sivasankar were good friends.
Vijayan first removed Sivasankar from the post of his secretary and also the IT Secretary and then suspended him from the service.
Now all eyes are on the Kerala High Court, which will decide on the anticipatory bail plea of Sivasankar on Wednesday.
–IANS
