BJP Kerala president K Surendran has been issued a notice to appear for questioning before the police on July 6, in the Kodakara hawala case. The police team handed over the notice at Surendran’s residence in Kozhikode on July 2 evening. The notice asks him to appear for questioning at the Thrissur Police Club by 10 am on July 6. The case relates to a robbery on a highway in Kodakara in Thrissur district on April 3, 2021 allegedly involving nine men, just three days before the Assembly elections polling in Kerala.
The testimony of the driver of the car which was robbed had claimed that Rs 25 lakh were stolen, but the police later said the stolen amount was estimated to be around Rs 3.5 crore. The investigating agency in Kerala has also said that the money was intended for BJP and that it was hawala money transported from Bengaluru. The police report says that one of the complainants, Dharmarajan, told the police that Rs 3.5 crore was transported from Bengaluru to Kozhikode on the instructions of BJP’s Kerala officer secretary Gireeshan Nair and state organising secretary Ganesh.
But the complainants in the case — Shamjeer Shamsudeen, AK Dharmarajan and Sunil Kumar — have moved a Thrissur court alleging that the money as well as the car it was being transported belonged to them, and that it was being transported for business purposes. They asked the court to return the confiscated money. The police have alleged that call records of Dharmarajan show multiple calls between him and BJP President Surendran’s son on the day of the robbery. So far, the police have arrested 21 people in the case.
Along with the Kerala police, the Kodakara hawala case is also being investigated by central agencies like the Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax department and the Election Commission. The BJP has also appointed a three-member panel to probe and submit a report on the case. The panel consists of retired IAS officer CV Ananda Bose, retired IPS officer Jacob Thomas and E Sreedharan.