The State police probe into the alleged Ayush appointment fraud accusation centred around Health Minister Veena George’s office seems to assume the proportions of a Byzantine plot involving political agent provocateurs and some sections of the media.
The police said on Tuesday that the motives involved confidence trickery, impersonation, illegal profiteering and putting the government on the defence. They were probing the point where multiple interests overlapped. The police were reticent to state whether the entire episode smacked of a conspiracy involving a political agent provocateur and some sections of the media as suggested by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Kannur last week.
Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] State secretary M. V. Govindan appeared to fill the information void. He claimed in Kannur that a dubious few prompted the complainant to drop the name of the Health Minister’s office to provide ammunition for the evening television commentariat to target the government. Mr. Govindan said the police would get to the conspirators.
The police also hinted that they were actively pursuing the conspiracy angle. For one, they have moved to record the sworn statement of K. Haridasan, the controversial complainant who questionably accused an official in Ms. George’s office of accepting a bribe of ₹1.72 lakh for a temporary post for his daughter-in-law as a Homoeo Medical Officer in the Ayush Mission.
The Cantonment police had questioned Mr. Haridasan about the veracity of his politically stormy accusation that he had handed a portion of the inducement in person to Ms. George’s assistant in front of her office in the Secretariat annexe here. An officer said Mr. Haridasan, so far, could provide no evidence to substantiate his accusation. Moreover, circumstantial and digital evidence did not support his charge.
For one, the timestamp on a marriage video showed the official attending a relative’s marriage in Pathanamthitta at the time of the alleged crime.
The police said Mr. Haridasan pleaded memory loss and impaired vision. Mr. Haridasan often gave contradictory statements and could not identify the person who received the cash from him. Hence, the police have reportedly requested Mr. Haridas to provide a sworn statement in front of a magistrate under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure for better clarity. Investigators said recanting the statement in court would make Mr. Haridasan legally liable for perjury.
Earlier, the police had arrested the prime accused and expelled CPI(M) worker Akhil Sajeev. They said more arrests were in the offing.
