Gold Smuggling Case: After Customs, NIA grills Sivasankar, former principal secretary to Kerala CM

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Thursday questioned M Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to Kerala Chief Minister in connection with the gold smuggling case, which lasted for nearly five hours.

The senior IAS officer who reached Police Club at Peroorkada, where NIA officials are stationed, in his own vehicle at around 4 pm on Thursday after NIA summoned him, left past 9 pm.

The Customs had grilled Sivasankar, also the former IT secretary for about nine hours in connection with the case.

Meanwhile, it is learned that NIA had sought the CCTV footage from the secretariat where the office of Sivasankar used to function as part of collecting more evidence in the case.

According to the investigation, he shared close proximity with the second accused in the gold smuggling case, Swapna Suresh and first accused Sarith PS. Also, the probe revealed that he also had known Sandeep Nair the fourth accused in the case.

As the probe by customs and NIA progressed, the revelation by the accused during interrogation that Sivasankar helped them to book a flat near secretariat turned the tables against the bureaucrat, who till his ouster was the face of Kerala IT department and was a powerful officer in Kerala Chief Minister's Office.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, when asked about his former principal secretary being questioned by NIA, said during a press meet: "I have told about this earlier. Some people are interested only in this matter. NIA is probing the case properly, as part of it they can reach anywhere. Let them travel in their path. I have reacted about all this earlier and there is no need to repeat it."

( With inputs from ANI )