Irinjalakuda: The Irinjalakuda First Class Judicial Magistrate Court on Wednesday rejected the claim petition filed by three people, seeking the release of money and vehicle seized by the police in the Kodakara blackmoney robbery case.
The court dismissed the petitions citing technical errors. It asked them to file separate claim petitions.
In their petition, the three people – Dharmarajan, Shamjeer Samsudheen and Sunil Kumar – claimed that the money looted on April 4 on the Thrissur-Ernakulam Highway was meant for business purposes.
They claimed that the stolen money and the car used to transport it belonged to them.
The three filed the petition a day after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan informed Kerala Assembly that the police had handed over the details of the probe to the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The petitioners had submitted that Rs 1.4 crore in cash, the gold ornaments and other valuable items seized by the police from the arrested people were part of the stolen property. Therefore, the money should be returned to them, they pleaded.
Of the stolen money, Rs 3.25 crore belonged to Dharmarajan and Rs 25 lakh belonged to Sunil Kumar, the petitioners claimed. The third petitioner, Shamjeer, is the owner of the Ertiga car in which the money was transported.
Earlier, the BJP, facing charges of using "hawala" money in the April 6 Assembly polls, had accused the Kerala government of playing the "politics of revenge" against it in connection with the highway heist.
The saffron party has alleged that instead of checking the call lists of the accused in the heist, the police were going through the call list of Dharmarajan, who is the complainant in the case.
Instead of nabbing the robbers and recovering the money, the police are looking at how the case can be linked to the BJP, as the person who lost the money had helped the party in its election campaign, it has alleged.
The BJP has also alleged that barring one, all others arrested in the case are associated with the CPM and the CPI.
According to a complaint filed by Shamjeer Samsudheen on April 7, a gang had stopped his car on the Kodakara flyover here and looted Rs 25 lakh kept in the vehicle when he was on his way to Kochi from Kozhikode.
Though the complaint had said only Rs 25 lakh were stolen, the investigators later found that the actual amount could be about Rs 3.5 crore and it was a "hawala" transaction. Police have arrested 21 people in connection with the case.
(With PTI inputs)
