Thiruvananthapuram, June 10 (BPNS)
The Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Vigilance, M.R.Ajith Kumar was shunted out of his post following the revelations by the gold smuggling case accused Swapna Suresh. Swapna had in an audio clip that she released to media at Palakkad on Friday said that the middle man, Shaj Kiran who had approached her under the guise of settling her cases, was speaking to the state Vigilance ADGP, Ajith Kumar regularly.
Inspector-General of Police, H. Venkatesh will replace Ajith Kumar who is not given a new posting. It may be noted that the Kerala Vigilance police had barged into the residence of Swapna Suresh on Wednesday and forcefully taken under custody of her partner and friend, Sarith who was a co-accused in the gold smuggling case. It was only after some time that it was known that those who had taken Sarith were Vigilance police officers and had taken him for interrogating him in the Life mission case which was registered earlier against him and was dormant for the past six months. The case had suddenly livened up after, Swapna came out against the Chief Minister much to the amusement of the people of the state.
Opposition Congress leaders have come out against the shunting out of the ADGP and former home minister and senior leader of Congress, Ramesh Chennithala told BPNS that Ajith Kumar was made a scape goat. Ramesh said, “Ajith Kumar was made a scapegoat and when I was the state home minsiter, he was the Thrissur range IG and he is an officer who wont do anything without the clearance from his political boss and here the Chief Minister is holding the home protfolio and it is clear that the officer has acted on the directions from Pinarayi Vijayan.”
Senior leader of Congress and again a former home minister, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan also said that Ajit Kumar will not act without any directions from the government.
After Swapna Suresh deposed before the magistrate court under Section 164 and revelations that Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his wife Kamala Vijayan, daughter Veena, private secretary ,CM. Raveendran, former Principal Secretary, M. Shivashankar, retired IAS Officer and former Private secretary to CM, Nalini Netto and former minister K.T. Jaleel were involved in gold smuggling activities that had rocked the state.
She had also revealed that Pinarayi Vijayan had carried a bag full of Indian currency to Dubai during his trip there which was forgotten at his residence and the UAE consulate had sent it to UAE with a diplomat from the consulate carrying it on behalf of the CM. It may be recalled that Swapna was a former official with the UAE consulate.
Swapna Suresh also said that the then UAE consul general had sent ‘Biriyani’ to the residence of Chief Minister in big vessels which were stacked with heavy metals, obviously as a reference to gold smuggling.
