Mumbai: There is finally clarity over Lalit Modi’s lawyer’s earlier claim that his client had been in touch with the Mumbai police over returning to India.
Mumbai police commissioner Rakesh Maria on Saturday released a statement saying it was he whom the former IPL boss had contacted in July last year.
Modi said he faced a threat to his life from the underworld, according to Maria.
Modi has been refusing to come back to the country ever since he left for the UK in mid-2010.
According to the statement released by Maria, who was heading the Anti-Terrorist Squad at the time, he was attending an international conference on terrorism in London when a lawyer who claimed to represent Lalit Modi approached him and said his client (Mr Modi) wanted to discuss a threat to his life, which was preventing him from coming back to India.
Read: Narendra Modi, Amit Shah discuss damage control measures
“Upon the lawyer’s insistence, we met albeit briefly when Lalit Modi sought Mumbai police’s help as he and his family were being threatened by the underworld. I categorically said that Mumbai police had no jurisdiction in London and he should return to Mumbai to lodge a formal complaint. Lalit Modi kept requesting for Mumbai police’s intervention…I reiterated…that it was imperative for Lalit Modi to return to Mumbai…to initiate any enquiry,” the statement said. The meeting lasted for around 15 to 20 minutes, according to Mr Maria.
The statement goes on to add that after he returned he returned to the country, he apprised then state home minister RR Patil and also prepared a confidential record of the same, apart from asking the Anti-Extortion Cell of the crime branch to conduct a discreet probe.
Interestingly, the statement briefly mentions an incident between 2009 and 2010 — when Mr Maria was heading the crime branch as a Joint CP — where the crime branch had foiled an attempt on Mr Modi’s life by the underworld.
Read: Sushma Swaraj, Vasundhara Raje need not quit, asserts BJP
According to crime branch sources, the arrest and subsequent interrogation of Chhota Shakeel gang hitman Rashid Malabari in April 2009 had revealed Shakeel’s plan to bump off Mr Modi, in connection with the betting in IPL’s season 3.
The same was corroborated by inputs received by the State Intelligence Department (SID) and the IB, when security was granted to Mr Modi until July 2010 after which it was withdrawn following a review.
