India sent private jet to Dominica carrying Choksi deportation documents: Antiguan PM

PTI, May 30, 2021, 11:07 AM IST

New Delhi: India sent a private jet to Dominica carrying documents related to the deportation of fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi, wanted in a Rs 13,500 crore bank loan fraud case, Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Gaston Browne told a radio show in his country.

There was, however, no immediate official confirmation from Indian authorities about it.

A Qatar Airways private jet landed at the Douglas-Charles airport in Dominica, Antigua News Room reported, leading to speculations about deportation of Choksi who was detained in the Caribbean island nation after his mysterious disappearance from neighbouring Antigua and Barbuda.

Browne told the 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.

Purported pictures of 62-year-old Choksi that have surfaced in Dominica shows him with red swollen eye and bruises on his hands.

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 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.