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The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday grilled C M Raveendran, the Additional Private Secretary of the Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, for 10 hours in the LIFE Mission Scam Case.
He appeared before the ED on the second consecutive day for questioning. On Tuesday, ED interrogated him for nine hours. On February 27, Raveendran did not appear before the ED for questioning in connection with the Life Mission Scam case. On February 23, ED issued notice to Raveendran in the LIFE Mission scam case. He had informed the central agency that he cannot appear on February 27 as the legislative assembly session was underway at Thiruvananthapuram. Meanwhile, a Special Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) Court today extended the period of judicial custody of M Sivasankar, former Principal Secretary to the Kerala CMO, till March 21 in the case. He was arrested by officials of the Enforcement Directorate on February 14. On February 16, the remand report submitted by ED in the PMLA Court against Sivasankar in the LIFE Mission Scam case revealed some WhatsApp chats between him and another accused Swapna Suresh. The remand report alleged that there is a larger nexus involving government representatives in the allocation of contracts and the generation of proceeds of crime via the upfront commission as a bribe. "In his WhatsApp message sent to Swapna on July 31, 2019, Sivasankar warned Swapna to be very careful and asked to take care. In his WhatsApp message, Sivasankar told Swapna not to get involved and warned her that if something goes wrong, they would put blame on her. He also told Swapna to keep away from the process to which Swapna replied that she would give it to Sarith and Khalid (other suspects in the case). Sivasankar also told Swapna that CM had asked him to get a job for Swapna," the remand report read. The report further said that the material evidence such as the WhatsApp conversation between Swapna Suresh and Sivasankar and the statement given by Suresh, it is clearly indicating that there is a larger nexus involving government representatives in the allocation of contracts and generation of proceeds of crime via the upfront commission as a bribe. "It is clear that Sivasankar had an interest in the upfront commission earned from M/s Unitac Builders and Developers run by Santhosh Eapen. It is also clear that Santhosh Eapen had paid for the luxury iPhone in possession of Sivasankar," it read. On the basis of investigation, it is evident that a huge amount of money which has been collected for the provision of residential homes to the hapless flood victims of Kerala was siphoned off as an upfront commission for allocation of the project contract, it added. The report said that despite giving ample opportunities to reveal and cooperate with the investigation to unravel the complete modus of laundering the proceeds of crime, Sivasankar has wilfully adopted an attitude of non-cooperation by either evading the query or giving misleading and evasive replies. "By such action of wilful non-co-operation, he is impeding the investigation by not disclosing the facts which are in his exclusive knowledge," it said. (ANI)
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