Days after Mehul Choksi, the fugitive diamond trader wanted in India for the Rs 13,000-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) loan fraud case, was arrested in Belgium, the Congress Tuesday alleged that it was “headline” management and asked if the people who lost money due to the fraud are going to get it back.
Choksi is facing criminal proceedings by the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate (ED). He was arrested in Belgium at the request of these central agencies. He had taken the citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda and fled India just before an FIR was registered in the PNB scam.
Reacting to Choksi’s arrest in Belgium, senior Congress leader and spokesperson Supriya Shrinate said, “I remember exactly four years back; we had sent a private jet to Dominica to get Mehul bhai back as Mr Modi refers to him as Mehul bhai. We had spent about Rs 44 crore. He didn’t come back.” She was referring to a failed attempt to bring Choksi to India from Dominica in 2021, when a private jet from India carrying CBI and Ministry of External Affairs officials landed in Roseau to take him.
She alleged that the Narendra Modi government has failed to get financial fugitives extradited. “The reality is that whether it is Mehul Choksi, or Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya, or Vinay Mittal, or anybody. None of these people have come back, and there are 33 financial fugitives who have fled this country from under Mr Modi’s nose,” Shrinate said.
“You have got a headline today, but what is it resulting in? Are the common man of this country, whose money was swindled by these people, going to get a single penny back? Until and unless they don’t bring these fugitives back and they face the law of this land. This is all hogwash,” she added.
“What is this going to result in? They swindled almost Rs 15,000-20,000 crore of PNB. Has the bank got its money back is the big question,” she said.
The CBI first named Choksi and his firms, including Gitanjali Gems, in 2018, based on a complaint received by PNB for the alleged issuance of fraudulent letters of undertaking in their favour, causing losses to the bank. A similar case was also filed against Choksi’s nephew Nirav Modi, alleging that they both colluded with some staffers of PNB to perpetrate the multi-crore fraud.