Manas Dasgupta
MUMBAI, Nov 10: The “hydrogen bomb” the Maharashtra minister and the Nationalist Congress Party leader Nawab Malik threatened to drop against the former chief minister and the BJP leader Devendra Fadnavis, turned out to be a damp squib on Wednesday with the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) rejecting Malik’s claim of Fadnavis “shielding” fake currency note racket to be factually incorrect.
Soon after Malik’s promised press meet where he leveled the charge against Fadnavis, the leader of the opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly, the laughed out at the Maharashtra minister claiming that his “promised hydrogen bomb” turned out to be not even a “phuljhadi” (sparkler) and Fadnavis tweeted a famous saying by the Irish novelist George Bernard Shaw, “I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig, you get dirty. And Besides, The pig likes it.” The former chief minister’s wife Amruta Fadnavis in a separate tweet called Malik a “spoilt” who was unleashing “lies after lies.” The on-going spat between Malik and Fadnavis had begun with the arrest of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan in the drugs-on-cruise case last month.
Malik said the senior BJP leader had “connections with underworld members” and that he, as Chief Minister, protected those behind a fake currency notes racket investigated by Sameer Wankhede – the NCB zonal officer who was investigating the drugs case but was later removed following allegations of Rs eight crores pay off claims.
He also accused Fadnavis of “diverting my issue”, and said the former Chief Minister was trying to “defend one officer (Wankhede) … a man who is framing innocent people in fake cases”; Malik has routinely accused the opposition BJP of using the anti-drugs agency to entrap Aryan Khan. “You made people with connections to the underworld as heads. Did you not make Munna Yadav head of the Construction Workers Board? You made Haidar Azam President of the Maulana Azad Finance Corporation,” Nawab Malik said on Wednesday.
“When demonetisation happened in 2016 Modiji said it was to eradicate black money, terrorism and fake currency. (But) till October 8 (2017) no cases of fake notes were registered because, under Fadnavis’ protection this was functioning,” he continued. The NCP leader said ₹ 14.56 crore had been recovered then but Fadnavis had “settled” the case. “One arrest happened in Mumbai and one in Pune… Recovery was reported at ₹ 8 lakh, and the matter was settled. It was never sent to the NIA and the case never progressed… because those behind the racket were given protection,” he claimed.
“They said it was a Congress leader (behind the racket) … but it wasn’t. The plan was to blame it on the Congress if they got caught. Haji Arafat Sheikh was made Chairman of the Minorities Commission. His brother, Imran, was involved in this crime and was caught,” Malik claimed. “The investigator in charge was also Sameer Dawood Wankhede… (then with the DRI, or Directorate of Revenue Intelligence). The case was managed by Devendraji and Wankhede,” the minister said.
The DRI sources, however, rejected Malik’s claims. According to a top DRI official, the allegations of Malik were incorrect. While Wankhede, a joint director at DRI then, was in-charge of the case against Haji Imran Alam Shaikh – the brother of Haji Arafat Shaikh- and others, the total fake currency recovered from Haji Imran Alam Shaikh was Rs 10 lakh and not Rs 14.56 crores as Malik claimed.
Giving details of the incident referred to by Malik, the DRI sources said on October 7, 2017, the DRI seized Rs 10 lakh in fake Indian currency notes and arrested Haji Imran Alam Shaikh, then general secretary of North Central district Congress committee, his uncle Zahid Shaikh, a Khar-based real estate agent Mahesh Alimchandani and a Pune resident Shivajirao Khedekar in connection with circulation and distribution of fake notes of Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 in the city. The DRI found that the fake notes were smuggled into the country from the Indo-Bangladesh border and were of high quality as about 20 of the 31 security features of the new Rs 2,000 and Rs 500 notes were copied in the fake notes.
Subsequently, the DRI also arrested a man named Rehan Khan, a key accused in the case from Kalyan in Maharashtra, and seized good quality fake notes of Rs 9.75 lakh and fake Rs 2,000 notes which mentioned Children’s Bank of India in place of Reserve Bank of India, with a face value of Rs 6 lakh.
Sources in the DRI said it was mandatory to report every fake Indian currency seizure by the agency to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Central Bureau of Investigation. (CBI). The NIA and the CBI then decide if they want to pursue the case. The DRI, sources said, had informed the RBI, NIA and the CBI of the case booked by it in October 2017. Sources also pointed out that the case booked by the DRI against Sheikh and others was pending in the court for prosecution, said a source and there was no question of Fadnavis “shielding” the accused. All the accused in the case are currently out on bail.
Nawab Malik also slammed Fadnavis over Riyaz Bhati, an alleged aide of wanted gangster Dawood Ibrahim who was arrested in Mumbai in October 2019 on charges of extortion. “Riyaz Bhati was caught with two passports. Why was he seen with you at your programmes? How did Riyaz Bhati reach the Prime Minister when he came here? Devendraji… you used Riyaz for your work. All these things happened with your blessing,” Malik alleged.
The BJP’s Ashish Shelar, a close aide of Fadnavis, soon afterwards hit back mocking Malik over his claim of hydrogen bombs. “Those who claimed hydrogen bombs could not even burst sparklers. Yes, Munna Yadav, Haji Arafat and Haider Azam are party workers (but) there is not a single case against Arafat and Azam. They were included only after checking. None of this happened during Fadnavis’ time,” he claimed.
“Imran Alam Sheikh, who was caught with fake currency, was then a Congress secretary and is now a NCP worker,” he added, also denying all links between Riyaz Bhati and the Prime Minister. Shelar also produced photographs of Bhati with many ruling party leaders, including chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, and said he was being protected by the NCP.
“Bhati was one of the recovery agents engaged by former police officer Sachin Vaze for the collection of the extortion money. The NCP has been shielding Bhati who is absconding to ensure that their links with him are not exposed,” the BJP leader added.
Malik had alleged that Fadnavis, who served as the chief minister of the state from 2014 to 2019, appointed a Nagpur criminal Munna Yadav and a “Bangladeshi extortionist” Haider Azam to statutory corporations of the state government to shield them. The NCP leader also spoke about “more bombs” that were to be dropped in the coming days and spilling more beans on the BJP leadership.
He further said that while his fight was against someone who was framing innocent people in fake cases, Fadnavis was trying to defend him. This was in reference to the Narcotics Control Bureau’s (NCB) Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede against whom Malik has levelled several allegations ever since the drugs bust case drew national attention. His accusations came a day after Fadnavis said Malik had business dealings with convicts of the 1993 Mumbai blasts case.