Thiruvananthapuram | Kerala Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala on Wednesday termed the violent attack on the vehicles of the ED officials, who raided the rented house of former CM Pinarayi Vijayan, as a "conspiracy" of the CPI(M) to disrupt law and order under the new UDF government.
Chennithala emphasised that no one would be allowed to take the law into their hands and everyone involved in the violence, no matter how big they are, will face stringent legal action.
He said that in the state capital, the CPI(M) workers deliberately attacked the ED officials' vehicles to disrupt the normal way of life.
The Home Minister said that despite the lack of information to the Kerala police or Home Department from ED regarding the raids, the police on its own reached all the places where the crowd had gathered during the search.
At Vijayan's residence in Kannur and at the home of P A Mohamed Riyas in Kozhikode, there was no untoward incident after the ED raid, he said.
However, at Vijayan's rented house in the state capital, the ED officials' vehicles were violently attacked and damaged as part of a "conspiracy", he claimed.
Chennithala said that the police have photographs of all those involved in the violence, and they will face stringent action.
"No one will be allowed to take the law into their hands. We are not against demonstrations and protests. But everything has a limit. Attacking ED officials who had come for an investigation and damaging their vehicles is unacceptable.
"CPI(M) workers tried to take the law into their hands. It will not be condoned. Will catch all the culprits involved in it, no matter where they are hiding, and strong police action will be taken against them," he asserted.
He also claimed that attempts to disrupt law and order in the state capital had been going on for the last two days.
"One concerning the university union and the other one that happened here," the minister said.
He further said that the police were not to be blamed for the incident.
"If he had prior information about the raids or any intelligence input, we could have properly prevented the attack. Despite that, Kerala police carried out timely intervention at all places connected with the raids," he contended.
Chennithala also made it clear that any attempts to create riots in Kerala or agitations in the state capital by taking law into their hands, since a new government has just taken charge, will be dealt with strongly.
Police arrested 4 persons in connection with the attack. The arrests were made following several hours of a stand-off with party workers and leaders outside a CPI(M) area committee office at Palayam here, where the culprits were suspected to be hiding.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) raids were linked to the financial dealings between Vijayan's daughter's firm and a sand mining company.
A total of 10 premises in Kerala, including Vijayan's rented house at Bakery Junction here and his permanent residence in Kannur, were raided by the ED as part of its investigation against his daughter, Veena T, in the CMRL money laundering case.
The ED probe stems from a complaint filed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office after the interim board for settlement of the Income Tax Department questioned the legitimacy of certain transactions undertaken by CMRL with Veena's now-defunct firm.
According to the ED's case, registered under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) in 2024, CMRL allegedly made an illegal payment of Rs 1.72 crore to Veena's company, Exalogic Solutions, between 2017 and 2020, even though the IT firm had not provided any services to the company.
