Kochi: Salim Raj, who had served as former chief minister Oommen Chandy's gunman, has alleged that the latter had communicated with solar scam accused Saritha S. Nair using his phone on multiple occasions.
Salim said a total of 416 phone calls were made between him and Saritha since July, 2012, to May, 2013. Majority of these calls were from Saritha asking for Chandy. Salim made the revelations while deposing before the Justice Sivarajan commission probing the multi-crore scam.
He said he chose to remain silent about it since nobody asked him about it earlier.
Salim said he did not hand over the phone to Chandy on several occasions as he was attending some meetings or discussions. However, he said, Chandy had spoken to Saritha several times. He said Saritha had called him on the phone at Cliff House and vice versa.
"Chandy's former aides Jikkumon, Joppen, R.K. Balakrishnan and drivers used to use the phone at Cliff House. But there were attempts to frame that only I had contacts with Saritha," Salim said.
Salim said he had mentioned to former DGP T.P. Senkumar that Saritha used to call Chandy. "But Senkumar has not officially questioned me," Salim said.
Solar scam pertains to the accused -- Saritha and her partner Biju Radhakrishnan -- cheating several persons of crores of rupees by promising to set up solar power panels. The accused allegedly used the then chief minister's name to attract customers. Ever since the allegations broke, Chandy has denied any contact with Saritha.
Ahead of the last assembly polls, Saritha alleged that Chandy and some other Congress leaders received crores of rupees as bribe from her. She also alleged that they exploited her sexually.
