Expedite Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi’s extradition: India to UK officials
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-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 as “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 too asked Canada to stop the so-called ‘Khalistan Referendums’ by the proscribed terrorist organization ‘Sikh for Justice (SFJ)’ on 6 November in Ontario.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which organized 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 (MLAT), Letter Rogatories (LRs), 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 bilateral meeting. Pannun has already been declared a terrorist under Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) by Indian government.
In all, Indian agencies had bilateral meetings with 22 countries including the US, the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, Russia, the UAE, Nepal, Bangladesh, Oman, New Zealand, Bhutan, Namibia, Bahrain, Serbia, Malaysia and Mongolia as well as Europol during the Interpol event.
Fourteen of these happened because of requests from the other side, seeking information on extradition requests and other details, said the second officer.
“On the sidelines of 90th Interpol General Assembly, the delegation from India has had bilateral meetings with delegations from several countries to discuss matters related to police cooperation inter alia for enhancement of criminal intelligence sharing; geo-location of fugitives and criminals; combating terrorism, terror financing and online radicalization; coordinating efforts to prevent cybercrimes and online child sexual exploitation,” CBI said in a statement.