Kerala gold smuggling case: Man held for issuing fake degree certificate to accused Swapna
Darpan News Desk IANS, 23 Aug, 2022 12:59 PM
Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 23 (IANS) The Kerala police on Tuesday arrested a Punjab resident for allegedly issuing a fake University degree certificate to Swapna Suresh, the prime accused in the gold smuggling case.
A team of police officials, attached to the Cantonment Station, arrested Sachin Das from Amritsar in Punjab. The police team, along with Das, is expected to arrive on Thursday.
Swapna was arrested for smuggling gold by a National Investigation Agency (NIA) team from Bengaluru in July 2020. Her arrest was followed by the arrest of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's principal secretary -- a top IAS official M. Sivasankar -- who is out on bail after spending several weeks in prison in connection with the case.
During investigation, it was found that Swapna is a school dropout but managed to get a degree certificate from Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Open University. Based on the fake certificate and influence of high ranking officials like Sivasankar, she secured a plush job in the IT department which was headed by Vijayan.
Though a case was registered against her, no action was taken but after her allegations this June that Vijayan, his wife and daughter were engaged in the gold and cash smuggling, the police got into action and after a thorough probe, took Das into custody from Punjab.
Former Union Minister P. Chidambaram said his party is protesting the ED summons to Sonia Gandhi. "The AJL-Young India transaction is recorded in the books of account, the returns filed by the two companies and in the Income Tax returns. All that the ED wants to know can be found in the records," he said.
During a meeting with Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav and other officers, who called on him at his official residence here, Mann said that gangsters and drug peddlers were patronised by the previous governments.
The accused were identified as Neelam (35), Sunita (35), Neeta (34) and Savitri (34). DCP (Dwarka) M. Harsh Wardhan said the staff of Anti-Narcotics Cell received a secret information that some women sell drugs at Indira market near Anaj Mandi, Najafgarh.
According to the official, the main accused, Abhishek Chhabra was running the fake call-centre for the last one month. The victims of the scam are mainly the people residing in the foreign countries.
13 people have been arrested in the case so far after the first arrest was made on May 30, a day after the murder of Moosewala. Canada-based gangster Goldy Brar, who is a member of the Bishnoi gang, had claimed responsibility for Moosewala's murder.
Senior advocate Maninder Singh, representing Sharma, contended that new FIRs are being registered, and added that they will pick her up. The bench said: "No coercive action to be taken against present or future FIRs in relation to the same telecast..."
