M Sivasankar is fifth accused in Life Mission bribery case

KOCHI: M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to the chief minister, has been named fifth accused in the Life Mission bribery case. The Enforcement Directorate has implicated six in the case so far. After three days of interrogation, the ED arrested him yesterday. Sivasankar was produced in the court after medical examination.

The interrogation which started at 11 am on Tuesday ended in his arrest after 12 hours. The ED had asked Sivasankar to appear for questioning on the day of his retirement from service last week. However, he did not appear then. After grilling him on Friday, Monday and Tuesday, he was arrested at 11.30 pm last night.

In a search conducted in connection with the Vadakancherry Life Mission case, around one crore was found in Swapna Suresh's bank locker. Her statement was that this was the bribe received by Sivasankar in Life Mission. ED found black money transaction of Rs 3.38 crore. Meantime, Sivasankar did not confess to the crime despite grilling him for three days. The reason for the arrest was the conflicting statements in the evidence and interrogation of Santhosh Eapan.

This is the fourth time Sivasankar is being arrested by the central agencies. Sivasankar was first arrested by the ED in a money laundering case related to gold smuggling earlier on October 28, 2020. The NIA arrested him on November 25 in the gold smuggling case. The customs also arrested him on January 20, 2021, in dollar smuggling case. Sivasankar, released after 69 consecutive days in jail, was suspended but was later reinstated.