NIA did in just 24 hours what Kerala Police couldn’t in 6 days

KOCHI/ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The special NIA court in Kochi on Sunday remanded Swapna Suresh and Sandeep Nair to judicial custody. The two, who are prime accused in the July 5 gold smuggling case, were picked up in Bengaluru on Saturday after being on the run for six days.
A custody application filed by NIA would be considered by the court on Monday once the Covid-19 test results for the two come out.The duo, arraigned with two others – Sarith P S, already in Customs’ custody, and Fazil Faridh still at large -- for a failed bid to smuggle in 30kg of gold through diplomatic baggage, was taken to two separate heavily-guarded Covid care facilities later on Sunday.
Considering the magnitude of the case, the Union home ministry had on Thursday given the nod for NIA to take over the case and on Friday, the National Investigating Agency registered an FIR under UAPA and other terror-related charges.
While details of who, if any, in the state government aided the duo in their criminal activities, and the extent of the duo’s alleged terror links, will have to wait till their actual questioning begins in NIA custody, what isn’t in dispute is the total failure on the part of the state police ever since the smuggling incident came to light.
Several experts who spoke to TOI said there was already a crime branch case pending against Swapna Suresh which would have allowed the state police to intervene; or even if that was not the case, they could have taken suo motu cognisance of the gold smuggling case and, without waiting for any official invitation from Customs or other central agencies, could have joined the search for Swapna and Sandeep.
‘Did not alert neighbouring states’
The incident happened in Kerala, in our airport, we can obviously investigate. In this, there has been an obvious lack of responsibility from the state’s home department. Even though it has to depend on central agencies for intelligence, in the present scenario, getting to Swapna Suresh was very easy for a force as strong as Kerala police but it did not happen,” said Ajithkumar JV, noted criminologist and former official with Indian High Commission in London.
Sources said that even if Kerala Police was reluctant to arrest Swapna and Sandeep, they could have at least ensured that the accused did not leave the state. “When there are enough reasons to believe that the accused are wanted under serious criminal charges, the usual procedure would be to alert the neighbouring state police forces by sharing a photograph of the accused while ensuring that they are not able to leave the state,” a top police source, who requested anonymity, said.
Karnataka police confirmed that there was no alert message from Kerala police regarding the possible entry of the accused to Karnataka. “Kerala police was unaware of the arrest till the last moment. There was no communication between Kerala and Karnataka police over the matter,” a senior official from Karnataka police said.