The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Tuesday questioned suspended senior IAS officer M Sivasankar in the gold smuggling case for the second consecutive day. An senior woman IPS officer from the NIA had arrived from Hyderabad to lead the questioning in Kochi while other officers reportedly linked online from various offices. The questioning reportedly lasted around 10 hours.
This is the third time in the past five days that the suspended bureaucrat has been quizzed. On Monday, after questioning him for nine hours, Sivasankar was served a notice to appear before the NIA again on Tuesday.
The NIA had questioned Sivasankar in Thiruvananthapuram for five hours on July 23 and served him notice to appear at its Kochi office for further questioning on Monday. After Monday's exercise, he stayed the night at a hotel near the NIA office and arrived at around 10 am at the NIA premises as questioning resumed for the second day.
Sivasankar was former Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Information Technology Secretary before he was removed from the post after the gold smuggling racket came to light.
The case first surfaced when PS Sarith, a former employee of the UAE Consulate in Thiruvananthapuram, was arrested by the Customs Department on July 5 when he was allegedly facilitating the smuggling of 30 kg gold in a diplomatic bag from Dubai to the state capital in Kerala.
The case turned murkier when the name of Swapna Suresh, a former employee of the UAE Consulate and later employed with the IT Department, came to light. Her alleged links to Sivasankar IAS have come under the scanner.
The Customs had first quizzed Sivasankar for nine hours, after the case surfaced and they arrested Sarith. Swapna and Sandip were arrested by the NIA from Bengaluru. Sivasankar has maintained that his relations with Swapna were personal and not linked to their activities.
In a related development, the NIA Special Court on Tuesday sent Rameez KT, one of key suspects in the gold smuggling case, to seven-day NIA custody.
Rameez, arrested by the Customs (Preventive) Commissionerate on July 11 in connection with the case, was formally arrested by the NIA on Monday.
Filing the application for 10-day custody of Rameez, the NIA said his custodial interrogation is required to unearth the truth in the case.
With Inputs from PTI and IANS