Mehul Choksi remains elusive
Fugitive diamond merchant Mehul Choksi (62) seems to be inspired by a 2002 Steven Spielberg’s Hollywood biographical crime thriller film ‘Catch Me If You Can’ starring Tom Hanks. Our sleuths seem to be committing blunders to catch Choksi. There are many unanswered questions connected to Choksi’s sudden disappearance from his new home-nation Antigua and appearance in the small adjoining island nation Dominica in the Caribbean.An eight-member team of CBI and Enforcement Directorate officers and head of the CBI’s Bank Securities and Frauds (Mumbai) division–which had suddenly landed in Dominica some days ago to bring Choksi back–flew home on their chartered Qatar Airways private jet that took off from Dominica’s Melville Hall Airport Thursday night–without the most wanted fugitive.
The team was hoping to bring Choksi back to India if the Dominican court cleared his deportation. Obviously, something went wrong with the secret covert operation that, we are told, was closely monitored by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.It is clear that India’s “Vaccine Diplomacy” did not work. Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit had written a “Thank You” note to Modi some time back saying, “Thanks to the kindness of the Indian nation, 35,000 Dominicans will be vaccinated by April 2021; India has once again come to Dominica’s aid, and this too will not be forgotten.”
Was the gift of vaccines to Dominica in advance part of India’s secret mission to “catch” the fugitive jeweller and bring him back home to put him on trial? Sources say that a success would have helped the government salvage its image that has been dented by vaccine shortage, death of lakhs of people due to Covid-19 and thousands of bodies seen floating in the holy Ganga.But the Indian sleuths returned without the fugitive jeweller.
‘Choksi is still an Indian national’
The CBI and ED team tried to convince the Dominican court that Choksi is “still an Indian citizen” and, therefore, he should be deported to India and not sent back to Antigua. It is being claimed that Choksi applied for Antiguan citizenship based on a character report from Mumbai police in May 2017 and that he did not disclose before the Mumbai police that he had cases registered against him in several courts. The police gave him “an all-clear report, certifying that he was a good citizen with no criminal cases against him.” Is it not strange that the police did not know of the court cases? Choksi left India on 7 January 2018 “but without surrendering his Indian citizenship”, the plea taken in the Dominican court said.
Billionaire Had A Ration Card
The “documents” that Indian team produced before the Dominican court had one most intriguing alleged piece of evidence that you as an Indian may find it difficult to believe–it is billionaire Choksi’s Ration Card!“Apart from incomplete paper work, the identity cards of Choksi like ration card, Aadhaar card and his PAN card reflect that he is an active Indian national,” the CBI & ED team told the Dominican court. The judge was told that India does not allow dual citizenship.India’s premier investigative agencies want us to believe that richi-rich Choksi had a Ration Card! A little bird told us that the Indian sleuths projected the ration card as “Choksi’s Food Security Card.”If Choksi really had a ration card–a basic document meant for the poorest of poor–he should be charged for alleged “forgery” and false affidavit that he must have submitted to the Mumbai civic authorities. Surely, the CBI and ED must disclose about “entries in Choksi’s ration card”–how many times the jeweller had procured rations and since when.
Why Did India Hire A Foreign Plane?
One wonders why the CBI and ED hired a chartered plane from Qatar Airways to reach Antigua. Why were they so sure they would return with Choksi within a few days? Why did they not take an Indian plane? Were they trying it to keep it a secret, playing James Bond, hoping to “physically lift” diamond trader and return to India shouting “Surprise…Surprise”?
Choksi’s lawyer has alleged that the diamond merchant was “kidnapped and beaten up” by an Indian team that had reached Antigua before his client was “found’ in Dominica and that Choksi was “abducted” with the help of a foreign beauty Barbera who had taken a house near Choksi’s residence months ago and used to join him for an evening walk on popular Jolly beach. Choksi was last seen leaving home on Sunday evening for dinner at a restaurant. Antiguan PM has said that Choksi was caught with his girlfriend in Dominica where he had gone for “good fun.”A million-dollar question is whether Choksi had been tipped-off that an Indian covert operation team might be in Antigua soon “to fetch him” and that his new home-nation might not protect him and then he planned his “abduction’ to surface in Dominica which does not have extradition agreement with India.