Kerala govt must come clean in gold case

Twenty-five hours over three days. That’s how long the National Investigation Agency (NIA) team, engaged in unearthing the objective behind the recent gold smuggling attempt in Kerala, questioned senior IAS officer M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. That he was let off after the marathon interrogation sessions and not arrested as was being speculated should bring relief to the LDF government.

However, the embarrassment of having its top bureaucrat, who was running the CMO till recently, questioned in a case in which provisions of the law dealing with terrorism have been invoked will not be easy to shake off for the Pinarayi administration. Besides, there is the political implication to contend with, what with opposition parties looking to make the most of the given opportunity.

The fact is this isn’t an ordinary gold smuggling case. The NIA has come into the scene for a particular reason—to specifically investigate the suspected links between gold smuggling in Kerala and terror funding in the country. The agency suspects the involvement of “highly influential people in India and abroad” in the conspiracy to smuggle large quantities of gold. Then there is the question of how much the state government or the CM himself knew about what was happening.

According to investigators, those named in the case have been involved in gold smuggling for long and one of them was particularly close to Sivasankar. Was the government aware of this? If yes, why didn’t it act? Not being aware raises more questions. The government, at the moment, seems content to let the investigation go on, and the CM has maintained that he isn’t worried. But he must be.

The LDF government has weathered many a storm in its term, but this isn’t like any other. The questions will linger even if Sivasankar can’t be nailed in the case and investigators can’t pin anything on the CMO. To escape political repercussions, the government must come clean and answer all the questions that are on people’s minds. The episode has certainly eroded its credibility, and the one thing it can, and should, do is clear the air of suspicion around its role before it’s too late.