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The Hindu
The Hindu
National
The Hindu Bureau

Kerala gold smuggling case | Swapna Suresh accuses Crime Branch of harassment

The diplomatic baggage gold smuggling case suspect, Swapna Suresh has accused the Kerala Crime Branch of harassing her and asking for documentary evidence, if at all available with her, against Veena Vijayan, daughter of Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, instead of probing the conspiracy case registered against her.

Talking to reporters in Kochi on Thursday, Ms. Swapna alleged that the Crime Branch had threatened to implicate her in riot cases unless she kept away from HRDS India, which had already terminated her service, and her lawyer R. Krishna Raj. The CB had filed the conspiracy case against her on a petition by former Kerala minister K.T. Jaleel.

She claimed to have evidence of the business transactions involving Ms. Vijayan. “Rather than probing about the conspiracy case, CB is asking for the content of my confessional statement before the magistrate in the gold smuggling case registered by the Enforcement Directorate and copies of the evidence against Veena Vijayan. The confession statement is about the gold smuggling case and not Veena Vijaya’s business ventures. They are actually tutoring me about how that statement was useless. So be it, but still, I had to tell everything somewhere,” she said.

Ms. Swapna alleged that the CB sleuths had been citing the Facebook posts of her lawyer to show how he was against communists. “But what has it got to do with the conspiracy case against me,” she asked. Ms. Swapna alleged that HRDS India was forced to terminate her in the wake of continuous harassment by various government departments at their various units.

Ms. Swapna said she would fight the case till the end and stand by her allegations even if she is harassed to a point where she is left with no job, food, or home and is left on the streets.

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