Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan today signed the order suspending controversial IGP Tomin Thachankary from service in the wake of a Vigilance case against him for amassing wealth beyond his means.

The IGP, who is considered close to CPI(M) state Secretary Pinarayi Vijayan, has been in and out of controversies, and is now the first IPS officer in the state to face suspension on such a charge.

Thachankary had been on deputation as Managing Director of the Kerala Books and Publications Society (KBPS) for the last few years. The Government is learnt to have had little option after the FIR filed by the Vigilance Department that he had amassed around Rs 94 lakh beyond his known sources of income during 2003 to 2005. Thachankary, who had reportedly helped source the equipment for the CPI(M)’s TV channel, Kairali, that Vijayan put together, first courted controversy when the Customs caught his police guard flying down to Kochi with him on a Silk Air flight from Singapore, with expensive video equipment. Thachankary, however, was not charged.

Sources say Thachankary is still being separately probed by the Vigilance in connection with his many foreign trips, and import of video equipment.

The latest was when a fellow IGP who dared to do a video piracy raid on the large audio-video company that Thachankary’s wife runs was removed from his job on the spot before the CM personally intervened.