HRDS | Wading into a controversy 

Kerala-based NGO that employed a key smuggling accused is under the scanner 

An ongoing controversy over Kerala’s diplomatic channel gold smuggling case shifted its focus suddenly to a high-profile non-governmental organisation named Highrange Rural Development Society (HRDS) India when it hired and fired Swapna Suresh (in picture), one of the key accused in the case, within a few months.

At no time in its 25-year history has the HRDS been much under the spotlight than when it hired Ms. Swapna in February this year. Since then, the Thodupuzha-based NGO has frequently been in news.

Many times it denied the allegations that it was a body meant to cover the Sangh Parivar interests. Yet, some of its top functionaries have close links with the Sangh Parivar and the BJP. The circumstances that led to the hiring of Ms. Swapna and the days that followed raised questions about the role of the Sangh in placing her with the HRDS.

With the apparent support of some top Sangh leaders, Ms. Swapna appeared before a magistrate in Kochi and gave a confidential confession directly linking Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, his family and a few top bureaucrats and politicians with the gold smuggling case.

“We cannot take this harassment any longer. Different agencies of police are routinely coming and questioning our staff since we gave a job to Swapna. It has begun to affect our functioning,” said HRDS chief coordinator Joy Mathew, after sacking Swapna last week. According to him, the HRDS does not have the wherewithal to take on the government agencies.

Headed by its founder-secretary Aji Krishnan and president Atma Nambi, the HRDS says it works for tribal development. With offices in Delhi, Palakkad and Attappady, the HRDS has devised several projects with special focus on tribal development in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Tripura, Assam and Jharkhand. But interestingly, two of its major projects have run into rough weather in the tribal land of Attappady.

Even when there were allegations that the HRDS has more to hide than what it speaks profusely about its multi-crore projects, some of those who associated with and funded it in the initial days have distanced themselves from it apparently over lack of transparency. Former Union Minister K. Krishnakumar, who moved over to the BJP, and the Madhava Warrier Foundation headed by Mumbai-based businessman and a Sangh Parivar sympathiser Madhava Warrier are some of them.