Over the last three months, the State of Kerala has been brewing with the ‘Gold Smuggling Scam’. Importantly the 30 kilograms of smuggled gold worth 15 crores was concealed in bathroom equipment which was seized by the Customs officials at Thiruvananthapuram airport from diplomatic baggage from Dubai that was meant to be delivered to the UAE Consulate in the State capital. This is for the first time in history that gold smuggling has happened in the name of a foreign nation’s diplomatic office! The National Investigation Agency(NIA) which has been investigating this case since then has found direct links with separatist terror groups and has unearthed links with state government officials, bureaucrats, prominent CPM party members, and Ministers like E.P.Jayarajan and the Kerala State Higher Education Minister K.T.Jaleel. Earlier M. Sivashankar, the Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, was also suspended and removed from his post after preliminary investigations by NIA confirmed that he had links with Swapna Suresh, one of the keys accused in the gold smuggling case. In spite of an ocean of democratic protests by ABVP Kerala and other organizations for the past several days across the state seeking the resignation of Higher Education Minister K.T.Jaleel the CPM government has been brutally and violently suppressing democratic voices by unleashing police force.

However, Kerala’s Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has shown sheer authoritarianism, non-transparency, unaccountability, utter inactivity, and sheer unwillingness in the ongoing investigations by the NIA and


Enforcement Directorate. Instead, the Chief Minister and his party leadership have shown tremendous enthusiasm in unwanted manipulation of public sentiments and destroying evidence by conspiring with Islamic forces that have also been investigated and exposed by the NIA. The Kerala Chief Minister’s attitude of ‘my way or the highway’ has been the highlight of his career and no wonder that he has refused to act sensibly and ask his education minister to resign and face NIA investigations. Such inaction from the part of Pinarayi Vijayan has also unearthed the role of Kerala State Party Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan’s son Binish Kodiyeri’s role in organized drug dealings, drug mafia, and smuggling network that has been recently exposed.

SFI comrades in the JNU or other university campuses always talk about the importance of dissent and protest, but we in ABVP have always understood that such narratives are ‘fake disguise’ as a part of the communist propaganda to appropriate power. With the police cruelty and brutal suppression of dissenting voices of ABVP Kerala protestors, the CPM government has ideologically vindicated that communism cannot tolerate democratic dissent and questioning.


ABVP will in spite of the stubbornness of the communist government, continue to raise the voices against maladministration. ABVP and all its students extend solidarity and support to the protesting karyakartas of Kerala until the resignation of K.T.Jaleel.

Vande Mataram!
Bharat Mata Ki Jai!
Jai Hind!

Regards ABVP-JNU

DISCLAIMER: The author is solely responsible for the views expressed in this article. The author carries the responsibility for citing and/or licensing of images utilized within the text.