IMA scam: In custody, Mohammed Mansoor Khan takes cops, ED sleuths hospital-hopping

BENGALURU: Mohammed Mansoor Khan, the mastermind of the Rs 1,500-crore IMA Ponzi scheme, took Enforcement Directorate investigators and policemen hospital-hopping across the city from late Sunday night through Monday.
Investigating officers interrogated Khan, handed over on Saturday to the custody of the Enforcement Directorate for three days, at the agency’s office off KH Road in Shantinagar till 9.45pm on Sunday, sources said. After obtaining his signature on some documents, they allowed Khan to have dinner and retire to his cell, outside which two armed policemen stood guard.
“Khan complained of uneasiness around 10.45pm, when there were only the two policemen in the office,” an ED source said. “They gave him water and alerted a senior officer, who rushed there in 15 minutes.”
Unwilling to take a chance with the health of 47-year-old Khan — who has implicated top state politicians in the scam since fleeing to Dubai on June 8 — the officer called for police assistance.
Escorted by three police jeeps with three inspectors, two sub-inspectors and 10 constables, the officer took Khan to Victoria Hospital after he said he was finding it difficult to breathe. Doctors on night duty checked him and ruled out any major problem, said the source.
They took Khan back to the ED office around 11.50pm. Even before he entered his room, however, Khan again complained of uneasiness and said he had chest pain.
This time they moved him to Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, Bannerghatta Main Road, around 5km away. Doctors there conducted an ECG and other tests on Khan. “Initial reports showed that Khan was healthy and had no heart problem,” the source quoted doctors as saying.
The officer and police escort returned Khan to the ED at 2am, but the IMA founder-director was not quite done with his apparently contrived ailments.
By the time Khan complained of chest pain and breathlessness again on Monday morning, ED officers and police had had enough. They moved him to the jail ward in Victoria Hospital, where doctors are monitoring him.
The ED had arrested Khan in Delhi last Friday after he took a flight to the capital from Dubai.