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by IANS |
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 25 (IANS) Road ahead for C.M.Ravindran, the assistant private secretary of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, is likely to be bumpy ?
with his intimate chats with Swapna Suresh, the prime accused in the gold smuggling and Life Mission cases, surfacing on Saturday.
Ravindran has been served a notice to appear before the Enforcement Directorate (ED) ?at its Kochi office on Monday.
Ravindran had earlier feigned ignorance of Swapna Suresh, but was questioned by the ED in 2020 and left off then.
But former top IAS official M.Sivasankar, who was also questioned in 2020 in the same Life Mission bribery case, was arrested early this month after three days' interrogation.
Later, the ED had questioned him for nine days in succession and on Friday handed him back to judicial custody and is now placed in a jail at Kochi till March 10.
It is against this background that Ravindran has been asked to appear for questioning on Monday and all eyes are on if he will turn up, as in 2020, it was after three notices was served he appeared.
Incidentally, in the earlier chat messages that were recovered between Swapna and Sivasankar, there is a mention of she being asked to meet Ravindran and these messages coinciding with the signing of the Life Mission agreement in 2018.
The latest chat messages between Ravindran and Swapna, that took place close to midnight, clearly indicates that Ravindran knew her very well and she soon after Sivasankar was arrested early this month, said Ravindran knows everything and if questioned the role of Vijayan and his family also will come out.
Politically also for Vijayan, Ravindran has been asked to appear on Monday, when the assembly session resumes after a short break and the Congress led opposition will not lose any opportunity to strike at Vijayan, similar to what he did when former Congress Chief Minister Oommen Chandy came under a cloud when in office (2011-16) when the Solar scam surfaced.
