Kochi, June 17 (IANS). Veena Vijayan, daughter of former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, reached the Enforcement Directorate (ED) office here on Wednesday for questioning in the controversial CMRL-Xlogic case.
Around 10:30 am, Veena, wearing a mask, got down from her car near the ED office gate and entered the office premises amid tight security and heavy presence of media persons.
Her husband and CI(M) MLA P.A. Mohammad Riyas was with him, but he did not go inside the office.
In the morning, the ED office in Kochi looked like a fort, with a heavy police force and television crews lined up outside, as all eyes were set on the arrival of Veena, founder-owner of Bengaluru-based IT firm ‘Xlogic Solutions’ (now defunct).
Since morning, news channels were keeping an eye on their every activity and were reporting that Veena and Riyas were leaving the state capital and heading towards Kochi.
The ED had initially summoned Veena to appear before her last week.
However, he told the agency that he was not well and offered to submit the documents through his lawyer.
The ED did not accept this request and issued him a fresh notice to appear in person on Wednesday.
This inquiry is related to the CMRL-Xlogic case, the investigation of which has been going on for almost 30 months.
The case acquired political significance after allegations of financial dealings between Cochin Minerals and Rutile Limited (CMRL) and Exalogic emerged.
Last month, the ED had searched Pinarayi Vijayan’s rented house in Thiruvananthapuram, where Veena is also staying.
In the last two days, several top officials associated with CMRL, including CMRL Managing Director S. Sasidharan Kartha’s wife, son and daughter, appeared before the agency for questioning and later left the office.
After a long legal and political activity related to this case, Veena’s appearance before the ED has given a new twist to this controversy. This is the first time in the history of Kerala that the daughter of a Chief Minister has appeared before a central agency.
–IANS
SCH/PM