ED arrests Kerala CPM secy’s son in Bengaluru drugs case

BENGALURU/KOCHI: The ED, Bengaluru, on Thursday arrested Bineesh Kodiyeri, son of Kerala CPM secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, under Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) for his alleged financial links with a Bengaluru drug dealer apprehended by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in August. Bineesh was produced before a local court, which sent him to ED custody till Monday.
Bineesh’s arrest, coming within hours of the arrest of Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan’s former principal secretary M Sivasankar, put the CPM and LDF government in the dock.CPM, however, refused to accept any moral culpability in the activities of the party secretary’s son despite the CPM’s code of conduct that is supposed to be binding on party leaders and their families.
“The party needs to take moral responsibility only if Kodiyeri Balakrishnan commits a mistake. Dragging the name of the father into cases connected with the son is part of petty politics practiced by the opposition”, LDF convener A Vijayaraghavan said. The CM refused to take questions on Bineesh’s arrest.
Bineesh (42), the younger son of the former Kerala home minister, had reached the ED office on Thursday. The agency had summoned him for questioning for the second time. He had earlier appeared before it on October 6, 2020.
ED sources said Bineesh’s long-time aide Mohammed Anoop (38) of Kochi received over Rs 50 lakh in his bank account before his arrest by the NCB for drug peddling on August 24 this year from a service apartment in Kalyan Nagar in Bengaluru. Investigators unearthed frequent phone conversations between the duo.
Earlier, during the questioning on October 6, Bineesh claimed that he had advised some of his acquaintances to transfer lakhs of rupees to Anoop’s bank account to support his eatery business in Bengaluru. The first questioning session had ended after Bineesh said he was unwell. ED sleuths had asked him to come with adequate records the next time to back his claims about the money transfer to Anoop. Sources said the version of Bineesh, presented on Thursday morning, lacked clarity and was unsatisfactory, following which he was arrested.Bineesh has had run-ins with law previously as well. He was an active SFI activist during his college days and had been arraigned as an accused in several criminal cases registered by the Thiruvananthapuram city police related to student protests.