Attack on ED officials serious offence, says Satheesan
Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan condemned the attack on Enforcement Directorate officials during searches linked to the CMRL money laundering case involving Pinarayi Vijayan’s daughter. He termed the violence a serious crime and defended police action taken to maintain law and order
Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan on Friday said that the attack on ED officials after a search at Marxist veteran Pinarayi Vijayan’s rented residence here was a serious offence.
Breaking his silence on the issue, Satheesan told reporters here that what happened was a serious crime and that those involved could be classified as criminals, as they attacked an ED team that also included women officials.
“Attacking investigators and damaging their vehicles is a serious offense, and it should not be repeated. That is our position,” he said, terming the violence as “cruel” and urging the CPI(M) not to encourage it.
He praised state Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala for deploying police force to the places where searches were being carried out on seeing the increase in the crowd gathering at those places, even though neither the police nor the Home Department had received any information from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) about the search.
The CM said that the state government and police intervened when there was a law-and-order issue, and “we have taken strong action in the matter” and there was no lapse on the part of the law and order agency.
Justifying the search by the ED, Satheesan said it was carried out in connection with a case already registered by a central agency and it was an ongoing investigation.
He said that the Congress-led UDF too had raised allegations against Vijayan’s daughter of having financial deals with a mining firm, CMRL, and that forms part of the ED probe.
He further said that the UDF had complaints about the central agency investigation itself as it was a four-year-old case, and nothing was done till the LDF government stepped down from power.
He said that one of the entities under investigation, the Cochin Minerals and Rutile Ltd (CMRL), moved the Kerala High Court to stop the probe, but its plea was dismissed and the ED was permitted to go ahead with its inquiry.
“The ED searches were carried out as part of that. How can the state government say it was wrong? Can we dictate how the probe should be carried out? No. The state government has no role at all in this,” he said.
Satheesan further said that he was at a loss whether to laugh or cry when he heard some former state ministers allege that the searches were carried out on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s orders on the request of the Kerala CM when he met him.
The CM said that he only made a courtesy call, as done by Vijayan himself several times in the past, after being elected to power.
“It was the first time I was personally seeing the PM. I had only seen him before on TV. I am happy the Left leaders are making such jokes that ED searches were carried out on my request,” he added.
He, however, questioned how Vijayan can blame Rahul Gandhi for the ED action. “The first thing the opposition leader did when he came out to speak after the ED search was to blame Rahul Gandhi. Did he send the ED officials? Vijayan did not blame the PM, the central government or the BJP,” Satheesan pointed out.
He said that Rahul Gandhi had faced several hours of questioning at a stretch from central agencies and he never sent any Congress workers to attack the vehicles of the investigating officials.
When reporters asked why the police did not enter the CPI(M) party office to look for those who attacked the ED officials’ vehicles, Satheesan said that the law and order agency acted “intelligently”.
“If police wanted, it could have entered there by force, beaten up those who obstruct them and take into custody a lot of people from there. But it avoided all that to prevent another agitation. An FIR has been lodged. Several persons have been arrested and remanded. More people will be arrested. The police is investigating. Let us not interfere with it,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Vijayan accused the Congress of taking a “narrow-minded” stand on ED actions against leaders of parties opposed to the BJP, claiming that the grand old party objects only when its own leaders are targeted.
He claimed that in the case of former Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the Congress kept asking why he was not being arrested or booked, and when a case was registered against him, they celebrated.
The Marxist veteran said that following the recent searches at his residences, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin and Kejriwal also condemned the ED’s actions, while criticising the Congress’s stand.
The ED searches were linked to financial dealings between Vijayan’s daughter’s firm and a sand mining company. A total of 10 premises in Kerala, including Vijayan’s rented residence in Thiruvananthapuram and his permanent residence in Kannur, were searched by the ED on Wednesday as part of its investigation into the CMRL money laundering case involving his daughter Veena T.
