A woman civil police officer has testified to the Kerala police that the Enforcement Directorate had allegedly forced Swapna Suresh, a key accused, to name Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the dollar smuggling case. This is the second time that a police officer is coming out with a similar allegation. The civil police officer alleged that the Enforcement Directorate officials, who were probing the case, had promised to make Swapna an approver if she named CM Pinarayi Vijayan in the case.
The woman police officer was on security duty while Swapna was being interrogated by the ED. She gave the statement to the police team which is investigating the circulation of an audio clip purportedly that of Swapna which was taken while she was in the ED’s custody.
According to reports, the woman cop had testified that she had heard an ED officer by the name of Radhakrishnan allegedly offering to extricate Swapna from the case if she testified against CM Pinarayi. The cop, according to reports, alleged that the ED officer wanted Swapna to testify that the cash found in the locker of her bank was handed over to her by M Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, and that the cash was given to Sivasankar by the CM himself.
On Tuesday, a civil police officer by the name of Siji Vijayan testified that the ED had allegedly forced Swapna to give a statement against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The statement of the officer comes days after ED filed an affidavit in Kerala High Court claiming that Swapna gave a statement “about smuggling of foreign currency at the instance of the Chief Minister and the Speaker with the help of the Consulate”.
Siji Vijayan, the CPO who was on duty while ED interrogated Swapna, made the statement before a special probe team of Kerala police that is inquiring about a voice clip claimed to be Swapna’s, in which allegations were made that she was forced to name Pinarayi.
“The questions were posed by ED officials in such a way that it forced Swapna to name the Chief Minister,” the CPO alleged in the statement.