“There will be no interference in the probe from any quarter. I have already made it clear that I will not run away and I will never blame others, but then let the probe continue and the truth will finally emerge,” Chandy told reporters after his return from Bahrain.
Arriving early yesterday from Bahrain, where he became the first Indian to receive the prestigious United Nations Global Award for Public Service on Thursday, the Kerala chief minister was mobbed by a huge crowd of people who had come to receive him.
A few hours later, there was a jolt for him as a court in Pathanamitta sent his former personal assistant Tenny Jopan, arrested on Friday, to two weeks’ judicial custody for his alleged links with a couple, who cheated a businessman of Rs4mn.
He was arrested after a police team formed to probe more than a dozen cheating cases involving Saritha S Nair and her former live-in partner Biju Radhakrishnan identified Jopan’s role in one case of cheating.
Jopan was asked to step aside by Chandy early this month after it was found that the call details of Nair revealed she had close contacts with him, Chandy’s security guard Salim Raj who has been suspended and another staff member Jikumon Jacob, who resigned early this week.
“This is the first time in the history of the state that a staff member of the chief minister is being arrested in a cheating case. Chandy always speaks of transparency and see what is happening now in this case,” Communist Party of India (Marxist) youth leader MSwaraj said.