There was an attempt on the life of a top customs officer in Kerala who heads the investigation into the gold smuggling cases that had rocked the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Kerala Government. Sources in Customs Department said the attack on the official had political patronage.
Sumith Kumar, Preventive Commissioner, Customs, who heads the team of investigators probing the gold smuggling scam in which officials from the Chief Minister’s Office too figure, was on his way to Kozhikode after inaugurating the Customs House at Kalpetta in Wayanad district on Friday when a group of strangers in a car and four bikes tried to waylaid the former.
The Preventive Commissioner told reporters that the car and bike-borne assailants gave him a chase for almost 25 km and tried to force his car to the side of the road. “Many times they succeeded in overtaking my car and tried to block my car.
The driver of my car was told by the security officer not to stop the car which he obliged. When we entered the suburb of Kozhikode, the vehicles which were chasing us took a different route and sped away,” said Sumit Kumar.
The official, later went to the police station and filed a report of what happened during his journey from Kalpetta to Kozhikode. The Police have registered a case under 279, 283 of the IPC and 120(B) of the Kerala Police Act.
The incident sent shockwaves across the State as this was the first incident of this kind on the life of an investigating officer, member of the highly sensitive Indian Revenue Service.
The Customs offcials at Thiruvananthapuram airport who had brought to light the gold smuggling through diplomatic channels had faced threats from some people and had been provided with security cover by the CRPF cops.
M Sivsankar, former principal secretary to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, C M Raveendran , additional special secretary, and K T Jaleel, minister for higher education had been interrogated by the Customs and other investigating agencies in connection with the gold smuggling. Sivsankar was in jail for 98 days on charges of hawala transaction and alleged connivance with persons who were arrested in connection with gold smuggling through diplomatic channels.
Sources of Customs told The Pioneer that there has been an increase in gold smuggling through airports in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode during the last one year.
“But we have successfully seized a large portion of gold which was being smuggled into the country. These smugglers enjoy political patronage and that too from the State’s highest politicians,” said the officials.
An officer belonging to the IRS who had links with top CPI(M) leaders and who was in the forefront to deny reports about gold smuggling through the airport’s diplomatic channel had been transferred to Nagpur.
Similarly, a junior officer in Kochi Customs Office who was a close relation of former CPI(M) secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan too was shunted out to an innocuous department when it was found that he was leaking certain information to his friends in the media.