A day after drawing flak from the Kerala High Court for the alleged efforts of his Government and police to protect his former gunman Salim Raj, Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy was on Wednesday accused of threatening the victim of a fraudulent attempt by his ex-aide to usurp land.
AK Nasser of Kalamassery near Kochi said that the Chief Minister had threatened to attach the 1.14 acres of land in the ownership of his mother Shereefa as Government property when he had met him to complain about the non-action on the complaint he had lodged against Salim Raj. The land in discussion is adjacent to a plot owned by Salim Raj’s brother-in-law.
“When I first met the Chief Minister in Thiruvananthapuram on June 13 with my complaint against Salim Raj who was then his gunman, his attitude was quite favourable. But when I met him again on June 21 - as there had been no action on my complaint against his aide - his attitude had changed,” said Nasser.
“The Chief Minister said that the Opposition leader, to whom we had given a copy of the complaint, was asking for the attachment of our land as Government property. He also said that the Government was examining the possibilities of carrying out the attachment. That was nothing but a plain threat,” Nasser said, adding that this exactly was the threat made by Salim Raj also.
Nasser said that the Chief Minister had at first refused to give a receipt for the complaint he had received from him. “However, he did give the receipt later but he handed over the complaint seeking Salim Raj’s suspension and registration of case against him to the Revenue Department,” he said, implying that the Chief Minister was determined to protect his aide.
As per the complaint, Salim Raj, with the help of his brother-in-law, had been trying to usurp the 1.14 acres of land owned by Nasser’s mother using forged documents. The police at Kalamassery had on August 17 registered a case on the complaint of Nasser and his mother but they had deliberately excluded the name of Chandy’s former gunman from the FIR.
According to Nasser, Salim Raj visited him at his house a day after the meeting with Chandy and asked him to sell the land to his brother-in-law for a price of Rs 4 crore while the land would actually cost a minimum of Rs 40 crore. Then he threatened me that he would use his influence over Chandy to make the Government attach the land and would “burn me alive”.
It was while taking up a petition seeking orders for a CBI probe on this case the High Court had on Tuesday come down heavily on the Government and the Police Department. The court asked the State Director General of Police whether he was afraid of the former Chandy aide and whether the State was in the grip of some mafia.
Meanwhile, the war in the State Congress over the relation between Salim Raj and Chandy worsened with his enemies in the ‘I’ group of the party led by State president Ramesh Chennithala vowing to continue their fight against such ‘unholy’ tendencies while Chandy’s own ‘A’ group complained that such moves were tarnishing the Government’s image.
“I will continue my criticisms against the Gun Man (gun kid, in reference to Salim Raj). He is not a Congressman. It is not our fault that the High Court had made some adverse references yesterday,” said ‘I’ group leader K Muraleedharan. The ‘I’ group is planning to approach the party high command against Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, an ‘A’ group leader.
‘A’ group advocate and State Congress vice-president MM Hassan said public statements by the likes of Muraleedharan were bringing disrepute to the Government. left with no other option, Chennithala announced a decision to ban public statements by party leaders.