Thiruvananthapuram: Opposition leader VD Satheesan on Monday criticised the government for using police force to squeeze money out of common people. He claimed that the state has given a target for every police station in the state for amassing crores of rupees from common people.

The police are looting crores of rupees from the poor for achieving the target set for every police officer. This measure is pushing people into great misery during the pandemic. The UDF expressed their displeasure at the meeting convened to discuss this issue.

Meanwhile, the UDF was surprised to see the chief minister remaining silent on the dollar smuggling case, despite repeated pleas from the Opposition and the confession of the accused in the gold smuggling case. The meeting concluded that the chief minister is keeping quiet on the matter because he did not have an answer for the question raised.

The meeting also pointed out that Pinarayi Vijayan, who took the FIR against former chief minister Oommen Chandy on the basis of the statement of a woman accused in a fraud case, is silent on the matter and is not ready to take necessary steps despite having the statement of the accused in Gold smuggling case in a similar case.