Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala government has decided to not hand over the CCTV footage of the Secretariat to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) after visuals showed Swapna Suresh, a prime accused in the gold smuggling case, visiting the block that houses the chief minister’s office.

The control room of the surveillance cameras has been put under strict control.

The NIA demanded the CCTV footage three weeks ago to ascertain if Swapna visited the office of M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to the chief minister, and that of minister K T Jaleel in the Secretariat Annexe.

The NIA had written to the chief secretary saying that the footage from July 2019 to July 5, 2020, should be collected and kept for its examination. Authorities said that footage of 14 months has been stored on the server.

The very next day after receiving the NIA request, officials examined footage from the first days of last year at the control room situated behind the Durbar Hall of the Secretariat.

It is learnt that they saw visuals of Swapna visiting the North Block where the Chief Minister's office is located. Sivasankar's office is located on the floor just above the Chief Minister’s Office. A member of the personnel staff of the Chief Minister's Office is also being monitored by the NIA.

With surveillance cameras having captured Swapna's presence at the Secretariat, a decision was taken at the highest levels of the government to not hand over the footage to the NIA now. Officials said the government will consider handing it over if the agency submits another request. Even the chief secretary who ordered the footage to be collected is unaware of this decision.

CCTV footage show Swapna Suresh visiting CM's block

Curbs on control room

The collection of CCTV footage from the Secretariat’s annexe where the chief minister’s office is located and uploading it on another server has been stopped after visuals recorded since last year showed Swapna Suresh visiting the block. The footage was being collected at the request of the NIA.

The control room is under the additional secretary for public administration. He is in charge of the Secretariat housekeeping. He is also the leader of a CPM organisation in the Secretariat.

Entry into the control room has been barred for everyone except those working there after it was decided that the footage will not be immediately handed over to the NIA.

The entry and exit timings of those responsible for camera surveillance should be recorded in the register and entry should be barred for those not on duty at the control room, says a new directive.

Surveillance cameras have been installed inside the control room to see who is coming and what they do.

The statements of Swapna and other accused in the gold smuggling case collected by the investigating agencies made it clear that she and others in the racket visited M Sivasankar's office several times. They said they also met another official of the chief minister’s staff.

As regards Minister Jaleel, the investigative agencies are more keen on collecting other evidence than determining if Swapna had visited his office.

There are 83 cameras in the secretariat and in the annexe buildings. Of these, four in the chief secretary's office were damaged for a week last May, the additional secretary for public administration had told the NIA. All the visuals demanded by the NIA except of those days have been stored, he said.

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