Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Expedite Mallya and Nirav’s extradition: India to UK officials
NEW DELHI: Indian law enforcement officials have asked their UK counterparts to “expedite” the extradition of fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya , “locate” wanted persons including underworld don Iqbal Mirchi’s wife Hajra Memon and their sons , Asif and Junaid, during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of 90th Interpol General Assembly in Delhi, people familiar with the matter said.
Mallya’s extradition was cleared by the UK high court in April 2020 but has been held up for two-and-a-half years now due to “secret proceedings” of unknown nature. Although the UK government has not mentioned the nature of these proceedings, and Indian officials have said they are not party to them, it is widely believed that Mallya has applied for asylum in the UK. This was confirmed by his lawyer in 2021 to a UK insolvency court.
A senior officer aware of the bilateral meeting said UK’s Interpol delegation was told that “while the courts have already cleared Mallya’s extradition, he needs to be extradited at the earliest to face the criminal justice system of India”.
India also raised the issue of extradition of other fugitives including Nirav Modi, middleman Sanjay Bhandari (both cases are in courts right now) and locating the Memons and some cyber criminals, this person added.
Indian officials also met their Canadian counterparts during the conference and “strongly” conveyed to them, the need to take action against several Khalistani terrorists residing in its territory, who are fomenting trouble in Punjab and are attempting to carry out a referendum in Ontario next month, a second officer said.
Canada, this officer added, terms the Khalistani suspects wanted by India “persons of interest”, and Indian officials provided their Canadian counterparts with evidence on how these individuals were involved in online radicalisation of youngsters, smuggling of arms, drugs and explosives, even targeted killings in India.
Last week, external affairs minister S Jaishankar asked Canada to stop the so-called ‘Khalistan Referendums’ by the proscribed terrorist organisation ‘Sikh for Justice (SFJ)’ on 6 November in Ontario.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which organised the four-day Interpol conference, also had a meeting with US officials, during which it raised issues related to India’s pending requests under Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties, Letter Rogatories, etc and extraditions. SFJ chief Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who is running the Khalistan referendum, is based in the US but it is not known if his extradition to India was taken up during the meeting.
“On the sidelines of 90th Interpol General Assembly, the delegation from India had bilateral meetings with delegations from several countries to discuss matters related to police cooperation inter alia for enhancement of criminal intelligence sharing; terror financing and online radicalisation...,” CBI said in a statement.