Embarrassments to Pinarayi Vijayan government over gold smuggling row

The Pinarayi Vijayan government in Kerala on Wednesday faced back to back setbacks in the gold smuggling row involving UAE consulate officials.

While the Kerala High Court stayed a judicial probe ordered by the Kerala government against the Enforcement Directorate officials, a statement of the gold smuggling accused and former UAE consulate employee that a packet containing currency was taken to UAE as per the Chief Minister's instruction came out.

The Kerala High Court stayed the Kerala government notification issued in March constituting a judicial commission to probe into the allegations that ED officials were conspiring to implicate the Chief Minister and other prominent persons in the government in the gold and dollar smuggling case. The stay was granted considering a petition of the ED. The court issued notice to the state government.

A police case registered against the Enforcement Directorate officials for allegedly pressuring the accused in the gold smuggling case to give statements against Vijayan and others in the government was earlier quashed by the court.

Meanwhile, in a related development, a show-cause notice issued by Customs to the accused in the gold smuggling case on July 29 stated that key accused Swapna Suresh said in her statement to the customs that another accused in the case Sarith told her about collecting a packet containing currency as directed by the CM's then principal secretary M Sivasankar and it was sent to Chief Minister, who was then on a tour to UAE, through an official of the UAE consulate in Thiruvananthapuram.

According to the customs notice quoting Swapna's statement, Sivasankar informed her that an important packet needed to the send to the Chief Minister who had by then reached UAE. She spoke to the Consul General about the matter and he agreed to send it through consulate official Ahmed Al Doukhi. Sarith, who was also an employee of the consulate, collected the packet and handed it over to Doukhi. Sarith later said that on screening with the x-ray unit at the consulate it was found that the packet contained currency.

Swapna also stated that a packet containing currency was handed over to her by former Kerala speaker P Sreeramakrishnan and it was also handed over to the Consul General.

The show-cause notice was issued as part of the probe into the smuggling of 1,90,000 US dollars by UAE consulate employee Khaled Mohamed Ali Shoukry.