London: Interpol has issued three Red Corner Notices against people suspected of abducting and torturing fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi in May 2021. These steps were taken at the request of the Antigua and Barbuda authorities. A statement released by the island nation’s police force said: ‘Those Red Notices were approved (by Conliffe Clarke, a magistrate in the country) and issued (by Interpol).’ The Interpol notice is a jolt to the Indian law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Indian agencies accuse Choksi of defrauding Punjab National Bank to the tune of Rs 13,000 crore and want to interrogate him in India. Choksi denies the allegation and insists that his companies have never defaulted on bank loans. Choksi, a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda since 2017, complained that he was beaten, blindfolded and forcibly taken on a boat from Antigua to Dominica, another island in the West Indies.
Indian officials accused of kidnapping
The complaint was prima facie upheld by an interim finding by Antiguan police as well as a Dominican court. Choksi had alleged that he was lured to a Hungarian woman’s flat in Antigua. Thereafter, two Indian-origin men from Britain took him to Dominica and handed him over to the Dominican police.
Indian law enforcement officers reportedly arrived secretly in Dominica on a Qatar Airways executive jet to take him to India, but were thwarted by a local radio presenter, Loftus Durand, by making public the news of Choksi’s illegal detention. Meanwhile Antigua and Barbuda Police Commissioner Atlee Rodney has denied any collusion between his force and Choksi, according to an article by an Indian news agency.
