ED says the handwritten accounts sat above the CMRL receipts. Dubai, it alleges, was reached by hawala.

A day after the Enforcement Directorate searched eight locations, it put a hawala trail on the same file. The file is about alleged illegal CMRL payments to an information-technology firm owned by Veena, also called Veena Vijayan, daughter of former Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. These are ED allegations. They are not a conviction.

The agency's official release, dated Wednesday 19 August and still the live paper on the following desks, said Veena transferred money to Dubai in UAE dirham and in Indian rupees. Several statements and digital evidence relating to hawala routes were seized, the Directorate said. It alleged she has been handling money beyond known sources of income. The amounts in her handwritten accounts, it said, were over and above the sums received from CMRL.

That last sentence is the hinge. A metro-rail payment, even if later called illegal, is a named source. A handwritten account that sits above that source is, in ED's telling, a second set of books. This desk will not invent what those books listed. The public figures are the two ED notings.

The amount transferred to Dubai, as per the notings the agency cited, is 3.49 lakh UAE dirham, equivalent to ₹85 lakh. The amount maintained for Indian rupees is about ₹20.05 crore. ₹85 lakh is the dirham line in rupees. ₹20.05 crore is the rupee line. This desk will not add them into one unaudited pile and call it a total. ED stated them as two notings.

The Directorate's own words, as locked on this card, are the words this page will use. Several statements and digital evidence relating to transfer of money through hawala routes were seized. Veena has been handling money beyond her known sources of income. The amounts stated in her handwritten accounts were over and above the amounts received from CMRL. The amount transferred to Dubai as per notings is 3.49 lakh UAE dirham, equivalent to ₹85 lakh. The amount maintained for Indian rupees is for about ₹20.05 crore approximately. Those are agency sentences. They are not a trial court's sentences.

A later follow-on, attributed by investigators to unnamed sources and not to a signed ED release in the facts held here, said a SIM used by Veena T for internet-based calls was obtained in the name of a DYFI leader in Kozhikode. The trace, those sources said, ran through a photograph of a SIM used in a Wi-Fi router on a seized device. That is a sources-flagged sentence. This desk will print it as what investigators, citing unnamed sources, have said. It will not print it as a proved fact. It will not name the DYFI leader, because that name is not on the card. It will not describe the photograph beyond the one clause given.

The same sources-flagged follow-on said ED has sought legal opinion on invoking the Foreign Exchange Management Act, that it may question Veena again, and that it may use a national cyber laboratory. "Sought legal opinion" is not an invocation. "May question" is not a summons this desk has seen. "May use" a cyber lab is not a lab report. Those three verbs will stay as may and sought.

The Kochi Zone of the Enforcement Directorate is the office on the card. Eight locations were searched. The card does not list those eight. This desk will not invent a house, a firm address, or a third city. Kozhikode enters the file only through the sources-flagged SIM sentence. Thiruvananthapuram is the political capital that holds the former Chief Minister's name. The money, ED says, went to Dubai.

What this desk will not do is name the information-technology firm, because the locked card does not name it. It will not invent a CMRL contract value. It will not write a defence quotation that nobody here has given. It will not treat handwritten accounts as audited accounts. It will not put a photograph of Veena or of Pinarayi Vijayan on this page.

Until a court writes, the public ledger is an eight-location search, an ED release that alleges hawala, a dirham noting of 3.49 lakh — ₹85 lakh — a rupee noting of about ₹20.05 crore, handwritten accounts said to sit above CMRL receipts, and a sources-flagged SIM and FEMA follow-on that has not been proved. A former Chief Minister's daughter can be investigated. She has not, on these facts, been convicted. The hawala trail is what the Directorate says it found. The page will leave it at that.