Kerala Governor Arif Muhammed Khan on Thursday forwarded the concerns raised by Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala regarding the fire at the Government Secretariat to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
A Raj Bhavan official said Mr. Khan had passed on the petition submitted by Mr. Chennithala to Mr. Vijayan with the footnote for “appropriate consideration”.
The government was likely to apprise Mr. Khan of the fire and its circumstances once the multiple investigations into the incident concluded.
Mr. Chennithala had told Mr. Khan that the fire at the General Administration Department (GAD) was an act of sabotage.
He said the “arsonists” had aimed at destroying records relating to foreign visits by Ministers, transactions of the government with foreign entities, details of persons accorded VIP status, and information regarding duty exemption granted to foreign missions to import goods.
He said at least three Central agencies probing the UAE consulate-linked gold smuggling case had sought records from the section to examine the role of the Chief Minister’s Office in the economic offence. Mr. Chennithala had also told Mr. Khan that the agencies had questioned Mr. Vijayan’s former Principal Secretary M. Sivasankar several times as part of the probe into the international racket.
Moreover, the agencies were probing the allegation that Swapna Suresh, the second accused in the smuggling case, had free rein to use the heft of the Chief Minister’s Office to organise events of the IT Department and international events involving potentates from the Gulf during 2018-2020 period. State president of Bharatiya Janata Party K. Surendran has sought a judicial inquiry into the fire.
Police probe fire
Meanwhile, the police team investigating the possible arson angle in the fire incident has declared the site of the blaze an active crime scene. It has walled off the area and placed armed sentries.
The police have also set surveillance cameras to cover the damaged sections. They have prepared an inventory of records in the section and appeared to have a fair idea of the damaged files.
An investigator said many files deemed destroyed related to booking of government guest houses and allotment of State-owned lodging facilities in New Delhi.
Most of the files were digitised and backed up. The officer said a preliminary report by the Electrical Inspector, which investigated the fire, pointed to a short circuit. Forensic experts and fire scene investigators were yet to give their final opinion.
The police were also verifying mobile phones in use in the locality at the time of the fire to detect the presence, if any, of outsiders.
