Kerala Child Rights Commission (KCRC) served a legal notice on the Enforcement Directorate (ED) during a protracted inspection at the home of Bineesh Kodiyeri , son of the State secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, here.
Mr. Bineesh's wife Renitta alleged that the ED had mentally harassed her and their three-year-old daughter. She claimed that the ED officials attempted to hector her into signing a witness form and seizure report. The seizure report said ED inspectors had seized a credit card in the name of Muhammad Anoop from Mr. Bineesh's house. She accused the ED of planting the evidence.
Drug case: ED raids Bineesh Kodiyeri's house in Thiruvananthapuram
Ms. Renitta had opened the house for the inspection. She had arrived there on Wednesday morning with her daughter and mother in tow and remained inside.
The ED had descended on "Kodiyeri", Mr. Bineesh's house at Maruthankuzhy, on Wednesday morning. The agency had arrested Mr. Bineesh in Bengaluru on August 29 on drug-trafficking related money laundering charges.
As the ED's inspection stretched to Thursday, more of Mr. Bineesh's relatives arrived outside the house. Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officers protecting the ED team denied them entry. In protest, they staged a sit-in outside the gate. Mr. Bineesh's relatives petitioned the police and also the KCRC.
Their grouse was that the ED had illegally detained Mr. Bineesh's family. They also alleged that the ED had violated the rights of his child.
KCRC chairman, K. V. Manoj Kumar, a CPM appointee, demanded that he and other officers be allowed inside. He claimed the KCRC was a judicial body and the ED could not deny it entry.
The ED allowed Mr. Bineesh's wife and mother-in-law to come outside and meet the relatives and speak to media persons who had mobbed the locality.
The arrest of Mr. Anoop in Bengaluru by the NCB on drug trafficking charges in April had resulted in the detention of Mr. Bineesh. The ED had said in a court filing that Mr. Anoop was Mr. Bineesh's frontman who obeyed the diktats of his "boss".
The agency also testified that Mr. Bineesh had moved vast amounts of money of questionable provenance to the accounts of Mr. Anoop.
Ms. Renitta said the ED had foisted a false case on her husband. "He is neither an underworld don, boss or drug trafficker. He just had a lot of friends," she said.
The Poojappura police have accepted on record the complaint that the ED had illegally detained Ms. Renitta, her child and mother. CPM legislator A. N. Shamsheer weighed against the ED. He said the ED's actions were politically motivated and bordered on harassment of innocent persons.
ED officials were not immediately available for comment.
