Ex-Minister dismisses role in arranging honorary D.Lit to Sharjah ruler

LDF MLA and former Kerala minister K T Jaleel on Thursday rubbished gold smuggling case key accused Swapna Suresh's charges that he had intervened to arrange an honorary D.Lit of the Calicut University for the Sharjah ruler and had illegally brought in various consignments through the UAE Consulate with a Benami's help.

Addressing a press conference here, he admitted that he knew Madhava Warrier, a Mumbai-based businessman, whom Suresh had alleged as his benami but claimed that it was just a friendship.

Jaleel also charged that Warrier had a legal dispute with HRDS, a Palakkad-based NGO which is the current employer of Suresh, and that prompted the smuggling case accused to drag his name into the issue. ''I know Madhava Warrier for some time and have a friendship with him. He is hailing from Thirunavaya (in Malappuram). He has some dispute with HRDS and a foundation run by him even filed a case against the NGO in the Mumbai high court,'' he told reporters.

Jaleel came up with an explanation after the content of an affidavit filed by Suresh, a former employee of the UAE Consulate before a special court came into the public domain the other day.

On the conferring of the D.Lit upon the Sharjah ruler, the former Higher Education Minister said he had no role in that and it was purely the decision of the university.

''It was in 2014 that the syndicate of the Calicut University had decided to confer him the honorary doctorate considering his knowledge and the books he has written,'' he said.

It was only in 2018 that he got the charge of the Higher Education Ministry, Jaleel explained.

Stating that whatever Swapna Suresh was claiming as fact against Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his family was just blatant lies, he said the CM was a person who never liked to accept any personal favor from anyone.

The former minister also urged the people and the media to reject such false propaganda and cooked-up stories. CPI(M) leader and former Assembly Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan also dismissed as 'baseless'' the allegations leveled against him by the accused in the affidavit.

Suresh, in the affidavit, had claimed that Sreeramakrishnan had sought the help of the former consulate general of the UAE to arrange a personal meeting with the Sharjah ruler when he arrived in the southern state some years ago and requested land in his country to set up a college there.

The sensational gold smuggling case, that had rocked Kerala before the Assembly polls last year, has returned to haunt the ruling LDF with the prime accused in the case, Swapna Suresh recently leveled certain serious allegations against Chief Minister Vijayan, his family members, and some top bureaucrats.

Suresh was released from jail in November last year, 16 months after her arrest in the sensational gold smuggling case.

A former employee of the UAE Consulate here, she was taken into custody by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) along with another accused Sandeep Nair from Bengaluru on July 11, 2020.

The NIA, Enforcement Directorate (ED), and Customs conducted a separate probe into the racket that was busted with the seizure of gold worth Rs 15 crore from the diplomatic baggage of the UAE Consulate at Thiruvananthapuram airport on July 5, 2020.

Several people, including M Sivasankar, the former Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister, and another ex-employee of the UAE Consulate here, Sarith P S, were arrested in connection with the case.