Kerala gold smuggling case: ED takes suspended IAS officer M Sivasankar into custody soon after court rejects anticipatory bail plea

The Kerala excessive courtroom on Wednesday rejected the anticipatory bail plea moved by suspended IAS officer, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s former secretary M Sivasankar in reference to the gold smuggling case. Customs and the Enforcement Directorate opposed his bail plea saying that he was conscious of the smuggling actions of Swapna Suresh. Soon after his bail plea was rejected, the ED detained him.

Once a really highly effective bureaucrat, Sivasankar fell from grace after his title obtained linked to the gold smuggling case. On Wednesday, he was detained from the Ayurveda hospital the place he was admitted for remedy. When Sivasankar obtained hospitalised, the customs mentioned he was pretending sickness to flee grilling by the companies.

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Earlier, the ED had claimed that there have been makes an attempt to bail Swapna Suresh out after the seizure of gold hidden in a bag camouflaged as a diplomatic baggage that got here to the UAE consulate within the state capital. The company has additionally accused Sivasankar of serving to the primary accused in cash laundering. But Sivasankar advised the courtroom that he had been grilled for greater than 90 hours and not one of the companies might implicate him within the case.

The sensational gold smuggling case surfaced on July 5 after 30 kg of yellow metallic was seized by the customs from a bundle camouflaged as diplomatic consignment addressed to the UAE consulate.

Later P Sarith Kumar, a former public relations officer of the consulate who got here to obtain the baggage, was arrested by the customs. Two different suspects, Swapna Suresh and her confederate Sandip Nair, had been arrested from their hideout in Bengaluru 5 days later. Sivasankar was suspended after his alleged hyperlinks with Suresh surfaced.