Golden opportunity?

As the gold-smuggling case gets murkier, opposition parties in Kerala target Pinarayi Vijayan’s throne

- CITHARA PAUL

ON JULY 12, Kerala saw a car chase that would put Formula 1 races to shame. It started at 11.30am at the Walayar border in Palakkad and ended at 1pm in Aluva, Ernakulam. The route was the NH544; the distance covered was 138km. The participants were three police vehicles and a bevy of media cars.

Inside one of the police vehicles were Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair, the second and fourth accused in the gold-smuggling case that shook the state earlier this month. The NIA had nabbed the duo from Bengaluru the previous night; they were about to escape to the northeast. The chase ended in Kochi after they underwent Covid-19 tests in Aluva. Both were presented before the NIA court and were remanded to 14 days custody.

The duo has been booked under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and had been, according to the NIA, using the diplomatic channel to smuggle gold for the past one year. The luggage that was nabbed at the Thiruvananthapuram international airport on July 4 was addressed to Rashed Khamis Ali Musaiqri Alshemeili, charge d’affaires at the UAE consulate in Kerala. The 30kg gold was “camouflaged” amid eatables. According to the customs department, Suresh had been using her contacts as a former UAE consulate official to run the smuggling network with Sarith Kumar, a former public relations officer at the UAE consulate. It is still unclear who paid for the gold and for whom it had been sent.