The complainant filed a claim report in the court demanding release of the seized cash

In a new twist in the sensational highway robbery case in which allegations of “hawala” connections were leveled against the Kerala BJP leadership, three persons, including the complainant, filed a claim petition in a court here on Tuesday, seeking release of the money and the police. The vehicle was seized from the criminals. In their petition filed in the judicial magistrate’s court at Irinjalakuda near here, Shamjeer, the complainant in the case and two others Dharmaraj and Sunil Kumar, claimed that the money robbed from the car was for commercial purposes. He claimed that the stolen money and the car used to transport it belonged to him. The development came a day after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan informed the state assembly

That the police had on April 4 allegedly handed over the details of the investigation of the Kodkara hawala robbery case to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) to the state BJP leadership. The petitioners submitted that an amount of Rs 1.4 crore, gold ornaments and other items seized by the police from the arrested criminals in the theft case were part of the stolen property. Therefore, the petitioners Dharmaraj and Sunil Kumar, who require the money for business purposes, had requested the police to at least return the seized cash, they submitted. The stolen money belongs to the petitioners, in which Dharamraj is the owner of Rs 3.25 crore and Sunil Kumar is the owner of Rs 25 lakh.

The petitioners claimed that the third petitioner, Shamjeer, is the owner of the Ertiga car in which the money was kept. The BJP in Kerala, facing allegations of using “hawala” money in the April 6 assembly elections, has accused the CPI(M)-led LDF government in the state in connection with highway thefts as “vendetta politics” against it. accused of doing. . The saffron party has alleged that instead of checking the call list of the accused in the dacoity case, the police is checking the call list of Dharamraj, who is the complainant in the case. The police have alleged that instead of nabbing the robbers and recovering the money, the police are looking into how the matter can be linked to the BJP, as the person who lost the money had helped in the party’s election campaign. The BJP has also alleged that barring one, all others arrested in the case are linked to the CPI(M) and the CPI.

On Monday, a war of words broke out between the Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition in the state assembly VD Satheesan over the “hawala” robbery, when the Congress leader asked if there were any plans from the Left government for a compromise. Case for BJP According to a complaint lodged by Shamjir Samsudin on April 7, a gang stopped his car at the Kodkara flyover here and robbed Rs 25 lakh kept in the vehicle while he was on his way from Kozhikode to Kochi. Though the complaint stated that only Rs 25 lakh had been stolen, investigators later found that the actual amount may have been around Rs 3.5 crore and was a “hawala” transaction. The police have arrested 21 people in the case. .