Customs Officer Transferred
in Gold Smuggling Case as he States No Pressure on him from CM Office to
Release Gold Consignment
·
Diplomat Offered Rs. 750 per 10 gms Commission for
Use of Diplomatic Bag
In a blow to the Customs
probe of the smuggling of gold via diplomatic baggage, Joint Commissioner Aniesh P Rajan has been transferred
to Nagpur.
Aniesh had landed in a controversy
when he told the media that no one from the Chief Minister's office called the Customs
to release the baggage containing the gold, which was seized at Thiruvananthapuram
airport.
The copy of the transfer
copy accessed by a News agency did not state any reasons for
the decision. The order by the Department of Revenue, Central Board of Indirect
Taxes and Customs was signed by Under Secretary S A Ansari.
It is directed that the officer should join Nagpur CGST and CX Zone on August 10.
Aniesh was serving as Joint
Commissioner of Customs Commissionerate (Preventive) for
the past four years. Interestingly, in two places of the order, Aneish was addressed as her and she.
While getting into
a lift at the Customs office, reporters had asked whether there was any call from
the CM's office to release the baggage. To which he replied, "We did not get
any calls."
Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan referred to his statement
in his daily press conference claiming that Customs has already said there was no
intervention from the CM's office.
However, BJP and Congress
leaders labelled Aniesh a pro-Left officer, citing his
Facebook post about the good work of the LDF government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
His family also followed the Left ideology and took part in CPM campaigns including
the government's human chain programme.
Customs sources said
the transfer of Aneish has had an impact on the investigating
team probing the gold smuggling. Aneish was initially
supervising the case but was not involved after the controversy.
Some of the Customs
officials cited politics for transferring him to Nagpur. "The transfer is a
psychological jolt to the officers probing the case. We were expecting some action
after the entire probe is over. However, such unnecessary transfer in the middle
of the probe could have been avoided. We feel the transfer to Nagpur is deliberate
as some labelled him a Leftist officer. He never showed any political leanings in
his work," an official said.
In connection to the diplomatic baggage gold
smuggling case, the Customs department will seek permission from the Ministry
of External Affairs to interrogate the attaché at the UAE Consulate in
Thiruvananthapuram. The officials decided to question the attaché based on the
information provided by the accused Swapna Suresh and
Sandeep Nair. Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair are in
custody. However, the Customs officials are preparing about 20 questions to be
asked to the attaché. Swapna and Sandeep reiterated
their statement during interrogation that they used to give 1,000 Dollars per
kilogram as commission to the attaché each time they smuggled the gold. With
this, the involvement of the attaché in the case has come to the forefront.