Opponents out to malign me: Roshan Baig

BENGALURU: Former minister R. Roshan Baig on Wednesday alleged that his political adversaries were making underhand attempts to malign his reputation and are orchestrating a series of campaigns against him.

At the same time he said the state government should hand over the multi-crore IMA scam to the CBI, as thousands of investors within and outside the state have lost their hard earned money.

He wanted the CBI to not only probe IMA scam, but also similar scams in the past – Ambiedent, Imza, Ala, Capital and Baraq.

He said, “I'm going to meet all my constituents, who lost their money, and work with the designated authorities to bring the accused to book and help the affected people get their hard-earned money back."

Mr Baig dared his adversaries to prove even a single allegation they were spreading against him or his associates. "Neither me nor my family members or my associates, who are the ones who took money by selling property to this company.  My conscience is clear. Let the state government hand over this case to CBI as this is the only agency capable of probing this scam," he observed.

He said that the purported audio clip that was released and a voice claiming to be IMA chief Mansoor Khan had accused Mr Baig of taking away Rs 400 crore and refusing to return it, was fake.

"The audio clip which got released on social media is doctored. The very aim of seeking the CBI intervention is clear as there is lot of ambiguity over Mansoor’s disappearance. I demand that the CBI must take note of the telephonic conversations that occurred during the 36 hours before he went missing. WhatsApp calls and messages also need to be recovered. This will throw light on which politician or a leader was involved in his escape."

He conceded that his relations with the IMA chief was restricted to the latter's involvement in extending his support to "Siyasat", an Urdu newspaper, as well as adopt a government Urdu school in his constituency.

"Both of these works were undertaken under the Corporate Social Responsibility funds," he clarified in response to a question.