A National Investigation Team (NIA) on Tuesday visited the government Secretariat and attempted to analyse months of video footage captured by in-house surveillance cameras.
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The NIA probe into the possible terrorist funding angle in the UAE consulate-linked gold smuggling case had brought the agency to the Secretariat doorstep.
The agency’s probe appeared focussed on the comings and goings at the office of the former Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, M. Sivasankar.
The NIA had reportedly attempted to isolate the accused in the case within the countless hours of grainy video recordings if any. The agency has technical experts on its team.
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By one account, the agency was focussed on finding out whether Swapna Suresh, the second accused in the case, was a regular at the office of Mr. Sivasankar.
Timing of visists
Investigators also wanted to probe whether her visits coincided with the timings of the illegal import of contraband gold in air cargo consignments addressed to the foreign staff at the UAE consulate here.
Mr. Sivasankar’s alleged association with Swapna and her appointment to the Space Park project under the IT Department, while she was in the employ of the UAE consulate, had attracted the interest of the NIA and other Central agencies.
The concurrence of events had also caused the Opposition parties to target Mr. Vijayan on the charge of giving free rein to “dubious characters” and “compromised” bureaucrats to run his office.
Mr. Vijayan had countered the charge by writing to the Prime Minister seeking an NIA probe.
He had placed Mr. Sivasankar under suspension and ordered the police to probe whether there was any nepotism in the appointment of Swapna to Space Park. Earlier, Chief Secretary Vishwas Mehta had found Mr. Sivasankar of violating IAS conduct rules.
The Customs case was that a Dubai-based cabal involving consulate officials and persons with access to higher-ups in the State government had exploited diplomatic goodwill to smuggle gold into the country from Dubai via air cargo consignments addressed to foreign personnel working for the UAE consulate here.
The Customs had found that the accused had used the novel method of operation to import gold in bulk illegally. An undercover operation had helped the Customs bust the smuggling channel in July. Sumeet Kumar, Commissioner Customs, Preventive, the probe.