New Delhi: Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Browne has claimed that India sent a private jet to Dominica carrying documents related to the deportation of fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi. The Antigua PM claimed that the private jet sighted at a Dominican airport was sent by the Indian government. However, there was no immediate official confirmation from Indian authorities about it.
Antigua News Room reported that a Qatar Airways private jet landed at the Douglas-Charles airport in Dominica. This led to speculations about deportation of Choksi who was detained in the Caribbean island nation after his mysterious disappearance from neighbouring Antigua and Barbuda.
Antigua PM told a radio show that the jet came from India carrying necessary documentation needed for deportation of the businessman, the media outlet reported.
Publicly available data of Qatar Executive flight A7CEE shows that it left the Delhi airport at 3.44 pm on May 28 and reached Dominica at 13.16 local time on the same day, via Madrid.
The Dominica High Court has stayed the removal of Choksi from its soil and put a gag order on the developments till the matter is heard in an open court on June 2.
Choksi has alleged that he was abducted from Jolly Harbour in Antigua and Barbuda by policemen looking like Antiguan and Indian and taken to Dominica.
Antigua police chief says no proof Mehul Choksi was abducted, forcibly taken to Dominica
Purported pictures of 62-year-old Choksi that have surfaced in Dominica shows him with red swollen eye and bruises on his arms.
The photos of Mehul Choksi in police custody in Dominica showed he had injury marks on his body.
Antigua and Barbuda police chief Atlee Rodney denied the claims of Choksi’s lawyers that he was abducted, beaten up and forcefully taken to Dominica. He said the police has “no information or indication” that Mehul Choksi was forcefully taken from Antigua.
“The only assertion we are hearing is from the attorney and Dominica Police have not confirmed it. We have no involvement in his [Mehul Choksi] movement from Antigua to Dominica or wherever he left,” the Antigua police chief said.
Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi are wanted for allegedly siphoning Rs 13,500 crore of public money from the state-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) using letters of undertaking.
While Nirav Modi is in a London prison after being repeatedly denied bail and is contesting his extradition to India, Choksi took citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda in 2017 using the Citizenship by Investment programme before fleeing India in the first week of January 2018. The scam came to light subsequently. Both are facing a CBI probe.
(With inputs from PTI)