Dragged back into the Thiruvananthapuram gold smuggling controversy by accused Swapna Suresh's revelations, former minister KT Jaleel has claimed that he was ready to face probes from international agencies including the CIA and Interpol.
MLA Jaleel, who was a minister in the first Pinarayi Vijayan government is facing the heat from multiple corners.
After Swapna Suresh, the prime accused in the 2020 smuggling case, claimed that Jaleel maintained close contacts with the UAE consulate, the state leadership of the BJP had turned the screws on him.
It is in this context that Jaleel has come forward with a Facebook post that tells the BJP leaders to not attempt to threaten him.
"Three central agencies could not find anything despite looking through their lenses. What more can you do Surendraji?" Jaleel wrote in response to BJP state president K Surendran's statements made earlier on the day.
Surendran had used Swapna's revelations to attack Jaleel. She had claimed that Jaleel used to hold talks with the consul-general 'inside a closed room'.
"What right did KT Jaleel have to interact at will with the consul-general and the consulate without the permission of the Centre?" Surendran asked. "He has violated the oath of office and he cannot wash his hands off it," said the BJP leader.
Jaleel countered Surendran's remarks by saying he had been in touch with the consulate for its charity works and as part of the UAE National Day. "They might have invited me because they couldn't get Surendran, who is a leader of the party that rules the Centre," Jaleel wrote in his post.
He has claimed that Centre's permission is required only to talk about diplomatic matters with foreign diplomats. "Nothing is prohibiting a citizen from having non-diplomatic talks. It is a globally accepted truth.
"If Surendran recommends to the Centre to initiate a probe in my case by a joint operation of Mossad, Interpol and CIA, I'll welcome it a thousand times," he wrote.
Recently, M Sivasankar, former principal secretary to the chief minister, had announced a book that claims to spill his version of the incident. It was following this announcement that Swapna Suresh came forward with her revelations.
