Police files charge sheet in Kodakara hawala money heist case

A Special Investigation Team probing the 'Kodakara hawala money heist case' on Friday filed a charge sheet in a local court against 22 people allegedly involved in the crime.

The charge sheet was filed in connection with the case of alleged heist of hawala money and conspiracy behind the action that occurredduring the time of Assembly elections in April this year.

In the charge sheet running into 625 pages, the investigation team named 219 people including BJP state chief K Surendran as witnesses.

The SIT has alleged that the money was brought for the BJP during the elections and recommended a probe by the central agencies including Enforcement Directorate, Income Tax and the Election Commission to trace the source of looted money.

The case was also related to allegations of hawala connections linked to some state leaders of the BJP.

The SIT led by Thrissur range DIG A Akbar had questioned Surendran last week in connection with the case.

The BJP has accused the state's Left government of targeting Surendran in order to divert the attention from other cases faced by the state government.

The SIT investigated the case based on a complaint filed by Shamjeer Samsudheen that in the first week of April, a gang had stopped his car on the Kodakara flyover in Thrissur district and looted Rs 25 lakh kept in the vehicle when he was on his way to Kochi from Kozhikode.

Though the complaint had stated that only Rs 25 lakh was stolen, the investigators later found that the actual amount could be about Rs 3.5 crore and it was a ''hawala'' transaction.

Last week, the Kerala High Court had dismissed the bail pleas of 10 accused in the heist case, saying the source of the looted money has not been traced, some of the co-accused are still at large, while several witnesses remain to be examined and a lot of evidence has to be retrieved.

The high court had also said there were numerous mysterious aspects in the case, like the police being alerted regarding the heist four days after the incident and the complainant alleging that only Rs 25 lakh was looted whereas the probe revealed that Rs 3.5 crore was being carried and all of it was stolen.PTI TGB BN BALA BALA