Fraud-accused A Feroze, who was last month suspended as director of the Kerala Government’s Public Relations Department, on Thursday surrendered dramatically in a Thiruvanant-hapuram police station in a cheating case related to the infamous solar power scam after the High Court rejected his anticipatory bail plea.
Feroze reached the police station on a motorbike within a short time of the rejection of his bail plea by the High Court, criticised the Government for not taking action against the former official against whom the case was registered as early as in 2010. Solar scam accused Saritha S Nair and Biju Radhakrishnan are Feroze's co-accused in the case.
That Feroze surrendered at the Medical College Police Station within a short while since the rejection of his bail plea suggested that he had been within a five-km radius from it, said critics. “This proves that there was foul play on the part of the police. It is obvious that the police had no intention to arrest him,” said the State BJP general secretary K Surendran.
According to the police, Feroze had been in hiding for over the past one month. The police had issued a lookout notice for him after a Thiruvananthapuram court rejected his anticipatory bail plea on July 2. He was suspended from service on June 19 on the basis of a preliminary inquiry report submitted to the Government by the Secretary, Public Relations.
The case against the former official is based on a complaint that he had assisted Saritha, the con woman behind the solar power scam, and her fraudster ex-husband Biju, who had impersonated as the senior strategic adviser of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), to dupe Salim Kabeer, a builder, of `40.9 lakh in 2009. Saritha had impersonated as a chartered accountant.
Saritha and Biju had taken money from Salim by convincing him that they could help him get huge loans from the ADB for windmill projects and contracts for various construction assignments. According to Salim, it was Feroze who had introduced Biju Radhakrishnan as a senior official of the ADB to him.
A case on the complaint was registered at the Medical College Police Station, Thiruvananthapuram in 2009 naming Biju, Saritha and Feroze as accused. The Police Commissioner had submitted a report to the Government in November, 2010 explaining the involvement of Feroze in the financial fraud. He was named as third accused in the case.