Thiruvananthapuram:There appears to be more trouble ahead for Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan after his former secretary and senior IAS officer M. Sivasankar was on Thursday named as the sixth accused in the dollar smuggling case registered by the customs department.
The 40 page chargesheet filed by the Customs before the Special Economic Offences Court at Kochi has named the former head of finance at the UAE Consulate office here, Egyptian born Khalid Mohammed Ali as the first accused. The other accused include Sarith, Swapna Suresh (both accused in the gold smuggling case also), Sandeep, Santhosh Eapen and Sivasankar as the sixth accused.
Sivasankar was the all powerful secretary to Vijayan and the chargesheet also mentions that he knew what was going on but kept mum. He leaked the intelligence report on the role played by the accused in this crime.
Another charge against Sivasankar is that the Rs one crore cash that was recovered from a locker of Swapna Suresh was the bribe money that he received for favouring a company for building the pet housing project of Vijayan under the Life Mission project.
Incidentally Swapna Suresh had recently alleged that dollars were smuggled to the UAE in the baggage of Vijayan while he was on a visit there in 2017.
Even though all these allegations had made big news in the media earlier also, now with the chargesheet being filed, all eyes are on the Congress led Opposition for their reaction to it.