There is one name that haunts the Gandhis. Adil Shahryar

Amidst a washout of the monsoon session of the parliament in the August of 2015, an interesting flashback triggered with a term called “Quid pro quo“. Congress’ accusation of Quid pro on Sushma Swaraj, came back as a boomerang, with Sushma roaring a befitting reply of what quid pro means and how Congress executed it. Also, a mention of Adil Shahryar and Quatrochhi by Sushma, curiously opened up questions for this generation.

Well, Quid pro means exchange of goods or services, where one transfer is dependent on the other. Typical rebuttals involve a name from the parliament or someone from the party. But Sushma’s mentioning of a name called Adil Shahryar is a little unknown.

Who is Adil Shahryar? Who is Mohammad Yunus? How is Adil related to Nehru family?

Adil is the son of Mohammad Yunus. Yunus was a member of the Indian Foreign Service and served as an ambassador in few countries. Well, this is the professional side of it. Who is he personally and how is he linked to the Nehru family is a point to ponder on. Yunus was born in 1916 in Abottabad to a wealthy family, his father owned vast forest land, agricultural land in Kashmir, North West Frontier province and Pak’s Punjab. During the pre-independence, Mr. Yunus chose to stay in India and adopt this country as his homeland, post partition. He then stayed close with the Nehru establishment.

Mr. M.O. Mathai, then private secretary to Mr. Nehru writes in his article called “SHE”, “She said that when she came from her dressing room to drink her usual glass of milk, she discovered that there was finely powdered glass in it. The powder was floating on the thick cream. At the first sip she immediately sensed it in her mouth and spat it out. She said that from her dressing room, she heard her husband sneaking into her bedroom and making an exit. She controlled herself, put her arms round me and holding me tight, said: “Oh, Mackie, I love you; I am so glad you came up.” Mr. Mathai was referring to Indira being poisoned by Firoz.

It’s a known fact that relations between Firoz and Indira worsened after this incident and both stayed in separate houses but not divorced. By the time of Sanjiv’s birth (younger son of Indira), Mohammad Yunus who had become a long time resident of Nehru establishment ensured within the first week of Sanjiv’s birth, he was circumcised on the excuse of the baby having a disease called “phimosis”. But, this was carried out in Islamic tradition. This information is available in Yunus’ book, “Persons, Passions & Politics” (ISBN-10: 0706910176). It’s up to the readers to soul (Sanjiv’s) search on who is Sanjiv’s father. Off-beat information from Sanjiv’s youth, Sanjiv was renamed to Sanjay, when the British police arrested Sanjiv for car theft in the United Kingdom and seized his passport. India’s ambassador to UK, (name undisclosed), ensured Sanjiv’s name change to Sanjay and obtained a new passport for him.

This Mohammad Yunus, had another son called Adil Shahryar. Adil, Rajiv, Sanjay grew up together and were close to each other.

In the early 80s, Adil Shahryar had a company called Caribbean international Investment Corporation, which had signed a deal with Shapton Producers to supply video cassettes. Instead, he supplied scrap paper. Shahryar had fallen out with the suppliers and later attempted to set fire on his hotel room. He was taken to custody in Miami in 1981. He was charged with defrauding shipping authorities, American Express International Banking Corporation, he was also charged with use of fire-arm while in felony. As a result, he was sentenced to 35 years in jail by the US fed court.

On 2nd December 1984, Bhopal, site of Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL), a toxic gas Methyl Isocyanate leakage from the pesticide plant of UCIL caused 3700 deaths, blinded atleast 20,000 and over 5 lakh were affected. Anderson was arrested in Bhopal on Dec 7, 1984, was placed under house-arrest in carbide guesthouse. Within a few hours of his arrest, then Chief minister of MP, Arjun Singh received a phone call from Delhi to ensure the safe release and escape of Anderson back to the United States. It is to be noted that Rajiv Gandhi had already assumed office, following Indira’s assassination in October 1984.

In June 1985, Ronald Reagan administration in the United States, granted presidential pardon to Adil Shahryar. Reagan commuted the sentence of 13 people in prison; also important is the fact that Reagan signed the clemency papers of Adil on June 11 1985; incidentally it’s the day when Rajiv landed in Washington. Rajiv secured the release of Adil Shahryar in exchange for the gesture on releasing Anderson earlier. A quid pro? It’s to be noted that Rajiv was vocal in saying that “Adil was wrongly imprisoned”.

Sushma’s rebuttal in August 2015 on Quid Pro opened up a generational fact which was not known to many of this generation. The Congress strategy of attacking the BJP, only back fired to do a history study on the “Gandhi” family.

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