Antigua police has started investigating Mehul Choksi's 'abduction': PM Gaston Browne
New Delhi: The Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda has started investigations into the alleged abduction of absconding diamantaire Mehul Choksi to neighbouring Dominica on a complaint filed by his lawyers, Prime Minister Gaston Browne told a local media outlet.
Browne said that Choksi's lawyers gave the names of people involved in the alleged abduction to the police commissioner in a complaint, the Antigua News Room reported.
The Antigua and Barbuda prime minister also said that if the claims are true, then it is a serious matter.
Browne said police are taking the complaint seriously, the report said.
"Choksi has filed a complaint with the Royal Police Force of Antigua and Barbuda to the extant that he was abducted. He made a formal claim through his attorneys that he was abducted from Antigua and taken to Dominica so it is a report that police is taking seriously and they are currently investigating the abduction," Browne said.
Another report in the Associates Times poked holes in the theory of Dominica opposition leader Lennox Linton, who had reportedly claimed that Choksi was brought to Dominica in the Yacht Calliope of Arne around 10 pm on May 23.
The family of Choksi had claimed that he was in Antigua till 5 pm on May 23 which makes it impossible to cover a 120-mile distance in four to five hours, which approximately takes about 12-13 hours, the publication said.
The report said that according to Customs document, the boat had left Antigua at 10 am on May 23, whereas Choksi's domestic staff had said that he was in his residence till 5 pm which indicates that Choksi did not travel by the boat which Linton is claiming.
It quoted unnamed doctors of the Dominica China Friendship Hospital, where Choksi is admitted, that a nail injury cited by his lawyers is an old one while other bruises could be new and could have been caused by even by a "slight push".
Choksi had mysteriously gone missing on May 23 from Antigua and Barbuda where he has been staying since 2018 as a citizen.
He was detained in the neighbouring island country, Dominica, for illegal entry after a possible romantic escapade with his rumoured girlfriend.
His lawyers alleged that he was kidnapped from Jolly Harbour in Antigua by policemen looking Antiguan and Indian and brought to Dominica on a boat.
Choksi was brought before a Roseau magistrate, on the orders of the Dominica high court, to answer charges of illegal entry where he pleaded not guilty but was denied bail.
He was admitted in the Dominica China Friendship Hospital.
The Dominica High Court has adjourned the hearing of the habeas corpus petition filed by his lawyers.
Choksi and his nephew Nirav Modi had fled India in the first week of January 2018 weeks before Rs 13,500 crore scam in Punjab National Bank (PNB) rocked the Indian banking industry.
The duo allegedly bribed the officials of the state-run bank to get Letters of Undertaking (LoU) on the basis of which they availed from overseas banks which remained unpaid.
The allegedly corrupt officials did not enter these LoUs in the core banking software of PNB, thus evading any scrutiny. The non-payment of these LoUs or bank guarantees worth Rs 13,500 crore resulted in default and became a liability on bank.
Modi escaped to Europe and was finally held in London where he is contesting his extradition to India while Choksi took citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda in 2017 where he had been staying since his escape from Delhi. PTI ABS
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
