THIRUVANANTHAPURAM/KOCHI: The Congress and the BJP on Tuesday mounted attack on the LDF government amid reports that the key accused in the Thiruvananthapuram gold smuggling case have revealed the involvement of a few ‘big sharks’ in the case.
KPCC president Mullappally Ramachandran demanded a probe into the foreign trips undertaken by the chief minister, speaker P Sriramakrishnan and ministers after the LDF government has come to power. “It needs to be probed whether they were misusing the green channel provided for them,” Mullappally said in a statement.
Terming the allegations that leaders who are holding Constitutional position are behind the gold smuggling and reverse hawala rackets, he said the new revelations proved that the government facilities had been misused for anti-national activities. “Even the court had remarked that the revelations by gold smuggling case accused were shocking. Such incidents are unheard in the history of India,” he said.
Mullappally said such activities wouldn’t happen without the knowledge and support of the CM and the CPM.
“From the beginning, the CM and the CPM tried to portray the investigation into the gold smuggling case as a casual affair. They also tried to dent the credibility ofthe investigating agencies and destabilise the probe,” he alleged. He asked the CM to reveal the names of those who had helped the antinationals.
BJP state president K Surendran said there was something suspicious about the foreign trips made by the speaker. “Some of the ministers are also involved in facilitating the gold smuggling. It is very clear that people sitting on such top positions misused their posts to help such people,” Surendran said. He said the CM is the main accused in the case and he and his office staff are the beneficiaries of the gold smuggled into the state.
Meanwhile, CPM acting state secretary A Vijayaraghavan said the central agencies are selectively leaking information on the gold smuggling case with a political motive.
Speaking at Kozhikode, Vijayaraghavan said the agencies have failed to locate the prime accused in the gold.
He said BJP state president K Surendran is raising unnecessary allegations against the speaker on the day of the elections.
He should explain as to how he got information on an issue which is with the court, he said