Krishna chit fund scam: CM Pinarayi Vijayan gets assurance from Tamil Nadu govt
Thiruvananthapuram: The Tamil Nadu police on Thursday sought the help of its Kerala counterpart to arrest promoters of Nirmal Krishna Chit Fund, close on the heels of Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami assuring Pinarayi Vijayan of effective action. Crime Branch DGP A. Hemachandran has submitted a report to state police chief Loknath Behera maintaining that if the state police registered a case in Kerala, the court would scrap it as the swindling firm based at Palukal comes under Tamil Nadu jurisdiction. He also suggested that a joint probe would be the best option. Mr Hemachandran also spoke to Tamil Nadu ADGP (economic offence wing) Sunil Kumar Singh and a couple of other officers and shared the information the CB had already collected.
Mr Vijayan personally took up the matter with Mr Palaniswami during their meeting in Chennai. He pointed out that the TN-based firm had a significant chunk of customers from border parts of Kerala. Many were also in a pressing need of money for purposes such as medical treatment and marriage of children. It had defrauded some 20,000 customers of an estimated Rs 2000 crore. Mr Vijayan also said Kerala police would hand over all documents and evidence collected so far to their Tamilnadu counterparts.
Mr Palaniswami assured him to give immediate instructions to his police, said a statement from Kerala CM's office. Sources said an inspector of Tamilnadu EOW, based in Nagercoil, who was entrusted with the probe, got in touch with CB officials in Kerala Thursday evening and sought assistance in capturing the accused, especially Nirmal Krishna who was residing at Jagathy here for quite some time. The CB so far received documents of deposits and chit funds to the tune of Rs 170 crore from some 3,700 persons in Kerala. It also got details of 83 land transactions made in favour of those associated with the Nirmal Krishna Nidhi Limited till 2014. Almost all were in parts of Neyyattinkara taluk. The number of benami land transactions in Tamilnadu could be manifold, said sources.
