Wheels Within Deals?

Sensation is matched by circumspection as a potboiler-worthy probe links Mollywood stars to a high-end car racket

- By Jeemon Jacob

BHUTANESE IS NOT A LANGUAGE you might expect to hear in Kerala. But then, words have wheels. High-end wheels, to take the word of the good people in law enforcement. It was late September when the phrase 'Operation Numkhor' leapt across Kerala's windshield-numkhor means 'vehicle' in Bhutanese. It was the exotic name given by the Customs Preventive Wing for its swoop-down against a cross-border luxury car racket, said to run from the Himalayan kingdom all the way down the tarmac to the deep south.

As the sleuths dredged through the swishier parts of Kerala high society, the number of top-end models seized touched 43.

That story had enough fuel to travel continents. But what really set it vrooming was the roster of names it fetched up. A directory of Mollywood A-listers: stars like Dulquer Salmaan and Prithviraj Sukumaran, others like Amith Chakkalakkal. Then, as Kerala swung between shock and schadenfreude, the script turned. A new actor landed on the scene: the Enforcement Directorate.

SHOCK AND AWE

On October 8, the ED conducted raids in 17 locations, ostensibly to probe unauthorised transactions in the racket. Dulquer, Prithviraj and Chakkalakkal figured, of course. So did the NRI owners of Coimbatore-based Shine Motors. The ED's raid parties even reached the residences of superstar Mammootty, Dulquer's father. Dulquer himself was summoned from Chennai to Kochi and interrogated for five hours.