Pinarayi Vijayan should resign if CM aware of fraud committed by DGP : Congress MLA

Following the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report against Director General of Police Loknath Behera over "misuse" of funds allocated for modernization and the missing rifles and ammunition, Congress MLA P T Thomas on Wednesday asked Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to resign if he was aware of the fraud committed by the officer.

''This is the highest level of allegation against any DGP in the country. The Chief Minister's approach to these allegations is very suspicious. The Chief Minister should reveal whether the government was aware of the allegations or not," said Thomas in a press conference in Kochi.

"If the fraud was committed with the knowledge of the government, the Chief Minister is not entitled to remain in this position for one minute. The Chief Minister should not think that if he laughed at this, the people of Kerala would be contained. There needs to be a thorough investigation," he said.

The Congress MLA said if Chief Minister was unaware of the fraud then Behra should be immediately removed from the post of DGP.

"If the Chief Minister was unaware of what Behra did then he should be removed from the post of DGP and this case should be investigated by a national agency like the CBI," the Congress MLA said.

A CAG report has found that 25 rifles and 12,061 live cartridges were "missing" from the possession of Kerala's Special Armed Police Battalion (SAPB).It also pointed out that the state police splurged the funds meant for force's modernisation on buying luxury cars for senior officers instead of procuring vehicles to be used at police stations.