'Gold smuggling accused was pressurised to name Vijayan'

Thiruvananthapuram, March 8 In an ongoing tiff between the central probe agencies and the Kerala government led by Pinarayi Vijayan in the gold smuggling case, on Monday it took yet another turn when a woman Kerala Police officer testified before a special probe team of the state police that the prime accused Swapna Suresh was asked loaded questions and was pressurised, so as to make her name the Chief Minister.

Incidentally this fresh revelations has come out at a time when last week, a statement of Swapna Suresh -- recorded under Section 108 of the Customs Act, and the 164 statement (given before the Magistrate) filed by Sumit Kumar, Customs Commissioner (Preventive) in the Kerala High Court on Thursday, revealed that the dollar smuggling cases was at the instance of Vijayan.

Siji Vijayan was the lady police official, who testified before the special probe team which is presently probing the case of an audio tape which was leaked and came out last year and was believed to be that of Swapna Suresh.

In that tape Suresh is heard saying that she will be made an approver in the case, if she says the name of Vijayan.

In the statement which surfaced in the media on Monday, Siji Vijayan said loaded questions were thrown at Swapna Suresh, so her answer would come out in such a way that could put Vijayan in the spot.

Siji added that she on the day of questioning by ED, was on personal security duty of Swapna Suresh.

Siji also told the probe team that the ED officials was speaking in English and Hindi and since she knew both the languages she could understand it.

She goes on to add that at times the ED officials used to get phone calls and they used to stop the questioning at that time, and it would resume once the call got over.

On Sunday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah while inaugurating a huge public rally of the Kerala unit of the BJP, here had raked up the gold smuggling case and asked pointed questions to Vijayan, now with this new revelation by the Kerala policewoman the coming days ahead of Apriol 6 polls might witness major drama.