Thiruvananthapuram/Kochi: The Crime Branch has finally named Swapna Suresh as an accused in a forgery case it has been investigating for four years. It has submitted a report naming Swapna as the second accused in a false harassment case filed against an Air India officer. The Crime Branch has accused her of conspiring, submitting fabricated documents and producing fake witness against the officer.
In March 2016, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) received by mail a complaint apparently signed by 17 women, against Air India Ground Officer L S Sibu.
Sibu approached the Valiyathura police saying that the complaint was fake. The police registered an FIR after their preliminary investigation revealed that the complaint received by the AAI was fake and handed over the case to the district crime branch.
The crime branch called the 17 people who had signed the complaint for questioning. While most of them said they were unaware of the complaint and that the sign on the complaint was not theirs, a few, however, revealed that Air India SATS vice-president Binoy Jacob and employee Swapna Suresh had forced them to sign the complaint. The case began to drag after that.
When its higher officials from Chennai and New Delhi were summoned to testify, Air India filed a petition in the high court demanding that it be excluded from the case.
While it could question Air India’s high officials, it couldn't call Swapna even once.
In its reply to Air India’s petition, the crime branch said it will be questioning Swapna. But that did not happen.
In August 2017, the investigating officer filed a report in the Thiruvananthapuram district court saying the crime branch had no evidence against the accused Swapna and Binoy in the case.
When details of the crime branch's report came out in 2018, Sibu approached the High Court challenging its conclusion.
In July 2019, the High Court ordered that an honest officer of the crime branch should be given the responsibility of the investigation.
The case investigation, led by an SP, resumed in Thiruvananthapuram. All the women who had signed the complaint were summoned, but Swapna was again not called.
Sibu then approached the Crime Branch ADGP and lodged another complaint and he approached the court again. The crime branch then said a charge sheet will be filed in five months.
So, finally, Swapna was called for questioning in 2020. However, when the interrogation was in progress, crime branch officials got calls from two high-ranking officers and she was released.
Even though she was called in for questioning again, she avoided it by using her influence at top levels in the government.
The crime branch rushed to prepare a report to file in court after Swapna was named as an accused and arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), a central agency, in the Trivandrum Airport gold smuggling case. Binoy Jacob is the first accused.
Swapna was appointed to a senior post in the IT department of the state government despite the Crime Branch having evidence to show that she was involved in forgery and conspiracy.
Swapna may been in gold smuggling since at least 2006
An acquaintance who had worked with Swapna in 2006 at a travel agency in Ravipuram in Thiruvananthapuram had helped her stay in hiding for two days after the Trivandrum Airport gold smuggling case was busted on July 5.
But her acquaintances backed down in fear and stopped helping her after the case took an anti-national tone.
The smuggling gang stayed at a hotel near the travel agency office for a day.
A person who was there when Swapna was working at the travel agency is still its employee. The employee remembers Swapna one day standing on top of the Thevara Bridge in an attempt to commit suicide.
Even at that time, she was suspected to have had ties with gold smugglers. Swapna filed a sexual harassment case against a colleague who reported the suspicion to his superiors in New Delhi. He ended up losing his job.
