ED search at Bineesh's home in Kerala concludes; family alleges threat

Searches by ED at the residence of Bineesh Kodiyeri, son of Kerala CPI(M) leader Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, here in connection with a money laundering case, concluded on Thursday as the family members staged dharna in protest against 'threat' from the agency.

The raids at Bineesh's house and multiple locations in the city and various parts of Kerala began on Wednesday morning.

A team from the Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights also visited the house this morning after a complaint was lodged with the police and the panel that Bineesh's wife, her mother and his child were illegally detained.

Bineesh's wife alleged that ED officials threatened and forced her to sign certain documents in which they claimed to have recovered a credit card in the name of Mohammed Anoop, an accused in the drug case in Bengaluru.

"The search started in the morning and they went to our bedroom on the first floor. In the evening they came with some documents and asked me to sign it.

In that, they had mentioned that they recovered a credit card in the name of Mohammed Anoop. I refused to do so as there was no such card in our house.

They threatened us and said Bineesh will face the consequences," Bineesh's wife told the media.

His wife claimed that the agency brought a credit card with them and asked her to sign the document saying it was seized from the house.

She also said the officials seized the mobile phone of her mother.

"He (Bineesh) is not a don. He's the father of my children. We have given all the documents they sought.

They were in this house from yesterday morning and all they did was eat," she said.

As the ED exited the house, the police stopped them and sought an explanation based on the complaint of illegal detention of the family.

Sources told PTI that ED sleuths will offer an explanation to the police and the commission.

Earlier in the day, when Bineesh's relatives reached his house with food for the family, they were denied entry by ED following which they sat in protest at the gate.

The kin charged the ED with not allowing the family members to have food and threatening them.

A special court in Bengaluru had on Monday extended custody of Bineesh to the central agency by five more days.

The agency arrested Bineesh on October 29 in a money laundering case linked to a drug seizure in Karnataka and took him into its custody for four days to interrogate him.

The central agency alleged that the "drug peddler" in the case, Mohammed Anoop, was a "benamidar" of Bineesh.

The ED probe stems from a Narcotics Control Bureau investigation that claimed to have busted an ecstasy pills drug trafficking racket in Karnataka in August, along with the arrest of Anoop and two others.

Bineesh has maintained that he knew Anoop and his family and the latter had borrowed money from him and some others to set up a restaurant business in Bengaluru a few years ago.