KOCHI : While NIA court rejection of Swapna Suresh’s bail plea and highlights in the verdict, crumbles claims by some popular media of her influence inside Chief Minister’s office, here is how those news makers twisted court observation to fabricate the sensational fake.
The court in its verdict made a special mention of Chief Minister's intervention in order to initiate detailed investigation into the gold smuggling case. Certain media elements however cherry-picked the words to interpret this as CM’s intervention in favour of the culprits. They then went about publishing the their falsified accounts using titles like ‘Swapna wields high influence over CM’s office”, “NIA quotes Swapna’s influence in CMO,” etc
The lone reference
On 8th June, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking a comprehensive probe by central agencies into all dimensions of the diplomatic gold smuggling intercepted at city’s airport. The request met favourable consideration and multiple agencies with NIA at apex, eventually began their investigations. And, this timely act is the sole reference to Chief Minister in the entire verdict which a couple of mainstream media houses manipulated.
The pointer
The 12th paragraph of the judgment speaks of CM’s intervention calling for detailed investigation into the sensational cache. More significantly, the statement was a repeat of Solicitor General’s counter to Swapna’s argument that her arrest was politically motivated - a clear indication of governmental stand against the illicit activity and its racketeers.
Incidentally, the verdict also role played by each of the accused in the smuggling and grounds for invoking UAPA charges - the basis for court’s rejection of Swapna’s bail plea last Wednesday. NIA in its arguments cited its findings substantiated by Swapna’s 32-page testimony document.
