Remember Baby? Yes, we’re talking about the slick action thriller starring Akshay Kumar in the lead. The way a small but dedicated network of spies pulls out all stops to bring a dreaded terror kingpin to justice evoked an overwhelming response from the audience, and the movie was a runaway hit in 2015. Only a handful of left-liberal critics cried hoarse, arguing that such an extradition mission could never be executed in reality.
However, 3 years after the movie hit the theaters; it seems that the Indian intelligence authorities took this barb as a challenge, in order to prove the left liberals wrong. The way in which the authorities arrested two absconding lobbyists associated with the notorious AgustaWestland scam looks like the mission was straightaway lifted from the movie ‘Baby’ itself.
For those unaware, Rajeev Saxena and Deepak Talwar are corporate lobbyists who are accused of embezzling millions in Rs. 3600 crore Agusta Westland scam. As per ANI reports, Rajeev Saxena has been accused of ‘operating a number of bank accounts in Switzerland in which huge amounts of money were deposited, according to the government dossier.’
On the other hand, Deepak Talwar was accused of ‘facilitating dispersal of profit-making routes of India’s state-carrier Air India to private airlines, using his connections with the then Civil Aviation Minister.’ The sources also claim that this has been corroborated by payments by private airlines which benefitted from such illegalities. The beneficiaries were Qatar Airways, Emirates and Air Arabia, the sources alleged, adding that Deepak Talwar also received kickbacks of Rs 212 crore in the accounts in the Bank of Singapore in the name of the company and controlled by him.
However, what has taken the entire social media, as well as the nation by storm is not why the two fugitives were arrested, but how they were arrested. In an audacious mission, which strikingly resembles the mission undertaken by the spies in ‘Baby’, the Indian authorities, aided by their UAE counterparts, arrested them in the wee hours and brought them back to India in a specially chartered private jet.
The extradition was so swift and precise, that before the absconding fugitives could understand anything, they were well on their way to India. The moment they landed, the authorities involved handed them over to the Enforcement Directorate, who have taken them into judicial custody under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The moment this mission was revealed, BJP’s official Twitter handle had a rather amusing take on the same, as follows:-
Last time we saw such swift extradition, it was Batman extraditing Lau from Hong Kong and delivering him to Jim Gordon.
"Everything's impossible until somebody does it". This time it's PM Narendra Modi. 😎 #DisruptionOfCorruption https://t.co/bj6xKDb8tM
— BJP (@BJP4India) January 31, 2019
This daredevil mission is also a significant occasion since UAE and India have no formal extradition treaty between them, which would’ve otherwise helped the Indian authorities better, as was in the case of arresting underworld don Chhota Rajan, with the help of the Indonesian authorities. Like in Baby, the mission was based on mutual assistance, just the way Christian Michel was arrested and extradited a couple of weeks ago in the same case.
The statements of Geeta Luthra and Prateek Yadav, legal counsel for Rajeev Saxena is a clear testimony of how boldly the Indian sleuths executed this daredevil mission without fearing about the possible consequences.
To quote their conversation with ANI, “Rajiv Saxena was picked up by UAE state security from his residence this morning at 9.30 am (UAE time) and illegally extradited to India around 5.30 pm (UAE time).” There were no extradition proceedings started in the UAE & he was not allowed access to his family or lawyers or essential daily medicine. He was boarded onto a private jet from a private terminal at Dubai International Airport.”
The counsel for Rajeev Saxena further claimed that when they spoke to the UAE state security and demanded to understand what had happened, they were told that he was on a flight and it ‘can’t be stopped’. To their further query on the issue, they were told to ‘ask the Indian Government’.
Until now, we only heard about such missions being successfully executed in the movies. But now, with the arrests of Rajeev Saxena and Deepak Talwar, such tasks are now executed brilliantly in real life. For this, we can only thank our able Indian intelligence for their continuous efforts, and given how hysterically the left liberals have responded to this news, we know that these arrests spell a lot of trouble for them.