Fugitive jeweller Mehul Choksi, the owner of Gitanjali Gems offered a bizarre excuse to not to return to India. Mehul Choksi, along with his nephew Nirav Modi, is wanted by multiple criminal agencies of India for cheating of Rs 13,600 crore through fraudulent letters of undertaking (LoU) and foreign letters of credit as well as for tax evasion. Mehul Choksi, in his application filed before the special PMLA court to cancel non-bailable warrants issued against him under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) claimed that he fears being lynched by a mob if he returns to India.
The application said, “The fact that there are various reported cases of mob lynching in India and the recent trend of mob lynching is growing, it has been stated in the application that the existing employees whose salaries and dues have not been paid because of freezing of the accounts, the families of detained employees who have been arrested without any rhyme or reason, the landlords whose premises the companies had taken on rent, who have not been paid their dues, the customers whose jewellery in showroom have been taken away by the Enforcement Directorate and the creditors of supplies and services, who have not been paid their dues have grievances and anger against Mehul Choksi.”
The excuse offered by Mehul Choksi is ridiculous as well as laughable. To escape the law, these thieves in suit-boot can make any excuse under the sun. Earlier, Vijay Mallya had also offered similar lame excuses. He said that the media will hound him; the conditions of Indian jails are not good, political witch-hunt, human right issue, abuse in trial process etc and have refused to return to India on these absurd and nonsense pretexts.
The excuse given by Mehul Choksi is silly and absurd at every level. In India, a particular section of the society and the media have made a career out of mob-lynching by giving it caste, communal and religious angle. Such people wait for the mob-lynching incidents to happen. Lynchings have happened in the past as well. Now, the only new thing in lynching or mob-violence related incidents is that political agenda-driven media is covering them more closely. In a country of 135 crore people it is almost impossible to stop all the crimes. However, few politicians and some sections of the media and the society are obsessed with highlighting only those incidents which suit their agenda. Nowadays, media is highlighting lynching or to be more precise mob-violence related incidents and by doing so they are providing fugitives like Mehul Choksi with an excuse to not to come back to India. The agenda-driven media should be ashamed of itself.
Media’s role in creating fake narrative of ‘lynchistan’ is quite different from the reality and fugitives like Mehul Choksi are attempting to exploit the ‘lynchistan’ narrative in their favor. However, even if media had not created such a narrative then also Mehul Choksi would have found some other lame excuse. The moot issue is that these fugitives should be brought back to the country immediately. They have not just looted the country and escaped but now they are also damaging the image of the country.
