P.V. Anvar to move Kerala High Court for judicial probe into contraband gold interceptions by plainclothes police squads

Speaking to reporters in Malappuram, Anvar demanded that Kerala High Court investigate the 188 gold smuggling cases registered by District Anti-Narcotics Special Action Force when Sujith Das, IPS, was District Police Chief in Malappuram

Alienated Left Democratic Front (LDF) Independent legislator P. V. Anvar said he would move the Kerala High Court for a serving judge-monitored investigation into his accusation that the State’s top law enforcement, in alleged connivance with Air Customs, employed plainclothes squad to interdict gold carriers outside the Karipur airport for their contraband. 

Speaking to reporters in Malappuram on Friday (September 27, 2024), Mr. Anvar demanded that the High Court investigate the 188 gold smuggling cases registered by the District Anti-Narcotics Special Action Force (DANSAF) when Sujith Das, IPS, was District Police Chief in Malappuram. 

He said he would lead a media delegation to Kondotty to identify the prime properties acquired by an appraiser contracted by the police and the Customs to testify to the purity and quantity of the contraband confiscated by DANSAF from gold carriers. 

Last week, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan defended the police action by stating that the process of smelting and purifying confiscated contraband gold, smuggled into Kerala airport in varied forms, caused a slight and legally permissible discrepancy in weight. 

Mr. Anvar said the police had no legal business smelting and refining intercepted contraband gold. The law required the police to produce the contraband in court or hand it over to the Customs.

He also alleged that the DANSAF team worked with corrupt Customs officials to intercept gold carriers away from the unblinking eyes of airport surveillance cameras.

Customs ‘nexus’

“Airport scanners will alert Customs enforcers to the contraband gold concealed in body cavities, clothes or luggage by smugglers flying in from the Gulf. Instead of intercepting the carriers in the Customs hall, the check post officials will alert the plainclothes squads waiting outside the airport. The squads will waylay the carriers, seize the contraband, understate its weight and purity and share the spoils with their Customs backers”, he said.

Earlier this week, Mr. Anvar alleged that the “booty” proceeds went to the top of law enforcement, including influential persons in the Chief Minister’s Office.

‘Personal betrayal’

Mr. Anvar said Mr. Vijayan, whom he had long considered a patriarchal figure and a paradigm of probity, had vilified him as a “guardian for gold smugglers” for speaking the truth. He termed Mr. Vijayan’s statement an unexpected, hurtful, and damaging about-turn, tantamount to a personal betrayal.

Mr. Anvar reiterated his accusation that a  “criminal coterie” in the Chief Minister’s Office, allegedly headed by political secretary P. Sasi and Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), Law and Order, M.R. Ajith Kumar, had turned ordinary Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers and minorities, chiefly Muslims, against the government by giving free rein to corrupt and communally biased police officers, especially in north Kerala. 

‘CPI(M) cadre enslaved’

He called ordinary CPI(M) workers an enslaved lot beholden to the party leadership. “The youth could either pretend to sleep or alert themselves of the issues I have raised”, he added. 

Mr. Anvar said he had risked the impending government license for his shuttered amusement park in Malappuram by raising the charges against the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO). 

“The file is on the Chief Minister’s table. I could have ignored the political issues to get the Chief Minister’s favour. He said that the Geological Survey of India and various disaster management agencies had approved the park closed for eight years now”, he said. 

Mr. Anvar said he had only drawn fuel allowance from the government as an MLA and used his salary for public good. “I could have remained silent to aid my businesses”, he added. 

Public meeting

Mr. Anvar said he would address a public meeting in Malappuram on October 6. “I will not put up posters or conduct a campaign to drum up support for the public meeting. Those inclined to attend are welcome. I am a train where the coaches are free of charge and open to the public. It will continue down the track of public service until the engine sputters to a halt,” he added. 

Life threat alleged

Mr. Anvar claimed his life was under threat. “I had requested police protection for my family weeks back. Nothing has transpired. I also applied for a firearm license, which is unlikely to materialise. Despite the threats, the gates of my house will never close to the public as it has not since the time of my late father and grandfather, both yesteryear Congress leaders and freedom fighters”, he said.

Published - September 27, 2024 12:36 pm IST