The family of the arrested son of the Kerala CPM chief has alleged that an Enforcement Directorate team held them hostage for over 26 hours and mentally tortured them to make them sign a fake seizure list that would have linked the accused to a drug peddler.

The wife and mother-in-law of businessman Bineesh Kodiyeri, son of Kerala CPM secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, on Thursday alleged that the six-member ED team from Bangalore that raided their home in Thiruvananthapuram on Wednesday tried to force them to sign a seizure record that mentioned that a credit card belonging to suspected drug peddler Anoop Mohammed had been found in the house.

Anoop and Bineesh have been arrested in Bangalore in connection with a drugs case in which two top Kannada actresses have also been picked up. Bineesh is being probed over a possible money-laundering angle to the case.

Bineesh’s family insisted that the ED officials had brought the credit card with them and claimed that it had been found in his bedroom.

The ED team had arrived at Bineesh’s home in the Kerala capital at 9am on Wednesday and left 26 hours later at 11am on Thursday, only after police intervened and the child rights commission served notices for rights violation of a child and two women. Other than Bineesh’s wife and mother-in-law, his three-year-old daughter was also allegedly held hostage.

None in the ED had reacted to the allegations till late on Thursday evening.

Bineesh’s wife Reneeta told reporters that they were not allowed access to a telephone.

“They mentally tortured us by insisting we sign the document if we wanted Bineesh to come back home (from custody in Bangalore),” she said.

“I told the officials they should have informed me about the card if it had really been recovered from our house. But they showed it only when I asked about the card details mentioned in the document they wanted me to sign,” Reneeta said.

In its application seeking extension of Bineesh’s remand, the ED had on Monday informed a court in Bangalore that he had made illegal money transactions through others to avoid detection. The agency had also claimed huge disparity in cash flow to his bank accounts and the income tax returns filed over several years.

Reneeta said the officials had not taken anything other than her mother’s phone. “They took nothing else from here,” she said.

The ED eventually got two independent witnesses — two officials of the agency — to sign the document stating that the credit card had been found in the house.

Reneeta’s mother Mini said the raid lasted hardly thirty minutes. “They went upstairs and then came down and after that they kept idling around between breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner. All the while we were forced to remain in a room,” Mini said, adding that the officials did not even allow her to have medicines.

The raiding team was expected to arrive on Tuesday evening, but came on Wednesday morning. Bineesh’s wife and child have been staying with Reneeta’s parents since his arrest, so none was present when the team came.

Reneeta arrived with her child and mother to open the house, following which they were not allowed to leave.

Some relatives came to the house on Thursday morning since there was no information from the two women. The relatives squatted outside the gate when officials refused to let them in.

Reneeta’s father lodged a police complaint and approached the child rights commission, pointing out that the women were not accused in the case.

A family lawyer had made an attempt to speak to Reneeta and Mini late on Wednesday but was forced to go back by CRPF personnel deployed outside.

While being taken for questioning at the ED zonal office in Bangalore on Thursday, Bineesh told reporters: “Let them (ED) do whatever they want to.”