Senior IAS officer M. Sivasankar, who has been suspended over his connection with the Kerala gold smuggling case, is being questioned by the National Investigation Agency officials in Thiruvanathapuram, as per reports.
According to PTI, Sivasankar, who was removed as the principal secretary to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and IT secretary and later suspended, was served notice and summoned by the NIA on Thursday, and he was seen at the Peroorkada police club in the city.
The NIA is learnt to have prepared a detailed questionnaire where it wants to know his links with Swapna Suresh, the key accused in the case related to the suspected large scale smuggling of gold via diplomatic channels into the country through airports in the state.
The NIA had booked four accused in the case—Sarith, Swapna, Sandeep Nair and Fasil Fareed under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The questions are related to whether he knew the accused persons, what were the links and how were they established, his suspected meetings with some of the accused, the number of meetings, international links if any, financial or property transactions if any and whether he was aware of the off shore locations into where the NIA believes the gold was smuggled.
The questioning is expected to continue for the next 2-3 days.
The Customs Department, which is also probing the case, questioned Sivasankar last week for nearly nine hours. Customs officials had seized the gold, weighing over 30 kg and valued at around Rs 15 crore, on July 5.
(With inputs from Namrata Biji Ahuja)
