Foreign News
Indian billionaire jeweller Mehul Choksi arrested in Belgium
Indian businessman Mehul Choksi has been arrested in Belgium following India’s request for his extradition.
Choksi, who left India in 2018, was arrested on Saturday, his lawyer Vijay Aggarwal told the BBC on Monday.
The diamond merchant is wanted by India for allegedly defrauding one of the country’s largest banks of nearly $1.8bn (£1.3bn).
Choksi has not commented publicly on the case, but his lawyer said they would appeal against his detention and also oppose his extradition to India.
“These are the obvious grounds on which we will argue the case, that he is not a flight risk and secondly, that he is extremely sick. He is undergoing cancer treatment,” Mr Agarwal said. He added that they would “contest the extradition on grounds that there isn’t enough evidence against him and the extradition request is politically motivated and the trial in India may not be fair”.
The BBC has reached out to India’s foreign ministry and financial crimes agency – the Enforcement Directorate (ED) – for comment.
According to a Times of India report, Choksi was arrested on the basis of two non-bailable warrants issued by an Indian court in 2018 and 2021 – although it’s not clear why the action came now.
Mehul Choksi and his nephew, Nirav Modi, are wanted by Indian authorities in connection with a $1.8bn fraud case at Punjab National Bank (PNB).
Niray Modi, who’s also been living abroad since 2018, is lodged in a prison in London and is awaiting extradition to India.
Both were high-profile diamond traders. Modi’s jewellery was worn by several Hollywood celebrities such as Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet. One of the biggest Bollywood stars, Priyanka Chopra, was his company’s brand ambassador. Choksi, meanwhile, was the owner of Gitanjali Gems, an Indian jewellery retailer which once had about 4,000 stores across India.
The ED has accused Choksi and Modi of colluding with some employees of PNB’s Brady House branch in Mumbai city to get fraudulent advances for payments to overseas suppliers of jewels.
These funds were then allegedly diverted and laundered.
Choksi and Modi have denied the allegations against them.
After leaving India, Choksi reportedly travelled to the US and later to Antigua – where he has citizenship. In 2021, he was reportedly arrested in Dominica and deported back to Antigua.
Hariprasad SV, a Bengaluru-based entrepreneur who had in 2016 alerted authorities about the alleged scam at PNB, said Choksi’s arrest was “great news”. “Apart from bringing him back, the most important thing is to get back all those billions of dollars he looted from India,” he told ANI news agency.
[BBC]
The Indian state of West Bengal has been on the boil for the past few days over the rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl.
The body of the child was fished out from a pond on Sunday – a day after her family reported her missing.
The incident in Surjyapur village in Baruipur, on the outskirts of Kolkata, has triggered days of violent protests, a mob lynching of an innocent man and the police killing of one of the suspects. Three other men who have been arrested remain in custody.
Warning: This story contains details that some readers may find distressing.
The child’s rape and murder – and the subsequent killing of the suspect – has snowballed into a huge political row, with the opposition parties accusing the state’s newly-elected Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of failing to protect women.
Family members of the girl said they last saw her on Saturday afternoon when she went out to buy a birthday gift for a friend. When she didn’t return home, they went to the police station at around 20:30 to seek help in finding her.
The family and villagers alleged that the police did not take their pleas seriously and said they would look into it the next day.
Desperate family members and villagers then themselves looked through the CCTV footage from nearby shops and spotted her walking with Prabhash Mondal – a local man who has since been killed by the police.
Early Sunday morning, a mob went to Mondal’s house, caught him and handed him over to the police.
A few hours later, a sack containing the girl’s body was pulled out from the pond, with media reports saying Mondal had led the police to the exact spot.
According to the post-mortem report, the cause of death is drowning, leading to claims that she was alive when she was dumped in the pond.
“Had the police acted earlier, she could have been saved,” her relatives have said.
The police complaint has since been amended to include charges under the Pocso, India’s stringent law on child sexual abuse. The police have yet to hold a press conference on the case or respond to the allegations.
The government has formed a special investigation team (SIT) to inquire into the case.
The recovery of the body saw anger pour out onto the streets, with a mob vandalising roads, shops and a local railway station. A young man was beaten to death by the crowd – Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari has since said he was innocent.
Several police officers were injured and vehicles damaged as they tried to contain the mob. Police have registered three cases and detained 40 people so far.
The area remains tense, with a ban on public gatherings and heavy police and paramilitary deployment to maintain order.
The unrest poses a huge challenge for the BJP, which swept to power in West Bengal for the first time ever in May, campaigning heavily on the issue of making the state safe for women.
Analysts say one of the main reasons three-term chief minister Mamata Banerjee lost the election was growing concern over women’s safety and her government’s shoddy handling of the rape and murder of a junior doctor at a government hospital.
This case has also become mired in a political controversy and is threatening to take on religious overtones as the victim was Muslim whereas the arrested men are Hindus.
A local BJP leader, Sushant Mondal’s home was attacked and ransacked by a mob that accused him of helping the suspects. He denied the allegations saying they were “false” and that he had in fact “helped catch the perpetrators”.
To contain the public anger, Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari visited the village on Tuesday and met the victim’s family.
“Our government is committed to curb any such incidents in the state. The police is doing what needs to be done. The family has spoke to me, they have lost their beloved daughter. I believe that they are satisfied talking to me.”
Less that 24 hours later, Prabhash Mondal was killed in a “police encounter”.
In a statement on Wednesday morning, Baruipur police said Mondal had been taken to the pond to recreate the crime scene as part of the investigation, but he attempted to snatch the weapon from a policeman and opened fire at them. The police retaliated and fired back, striking him. The injured accused was taken to hospital, where he was declared dead, the statement said.
Even though no allegations had been proven against Mondal, his mother appeared to have disowned her son and refused to accept his body.
“Two policemen came to my house. I had just woken up. They told me that my son had died and asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I told them I couldn’t because my husband was ill,” she told news agency ANI. “I said, do whatever you want to do. I have no objection. My son has been punished for what he did. I will not accept his body. I will not even bring his body home,” she added.
Opposition politicians and rights activists, however, have questioned the killing, saying it went against the rule of law.
Ranjit Sur of the Association for the Protection of Democratic Rights called the matter “suspicious”. Sur said the story of police encounters in many states of the country is almost the same – the accused tries to escape by snatching the police weapon and is then killed in the encounter.
In 2019 in a similar incident, four men accused of gang-raping and murdering a young woman in Hyderabad were killed by the police in an encounter.
[BBC]
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney paid a visit to Saudi Arabia, marking the first state visit in more than a quarter-century as Ottawa and Riyadh explore deeper mining and energy ties.
Carney visited on Thursday, on the heels of the NATO summit in Turkiye, doubling down on calls to diversify trade relationships as United States President Donald Trump imposed tariffs that have weighed on the Canadian economy. The visit included agreements covering mining, energy and artificial intelligence, which Carney’s office said would be finalised next year.
The two countries signed 13 new agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) covering areas including health and defence. The agreements are worth $1bn. Among the deals are agreements that would help Canadian companies develop mining and clean energy projects in Saudi Arabia.
During his visit, Carney also met with Amin Nasser, head of state oil giant Saudi Aramco. On energy, Carney’s office said the two countries are working together on agreements related to liquefied natural gas, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage.
Carney’s office also said he would lead “a delegation of Canada’s pension funds” as part of efforts to invest in Saudi Arabia’s energy and AI sectors.
In talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Carney signed agreements aimed at expanding several key partnerships between the two nations following years of strained relations under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Trudeau, Carney’s predecessor, had been critical of Saudi Arabia’s treatment of human rights activists, including Saudi writer Raif Badawi and his sister, Samar. In response, Saudi Arabia expelled the Canadian ambassador and cut trade and investment ties in 2018.
Ottawa and Riyadh began restoring diplomatic ties in 2023.
Carney was asked by reporters about the decision to re-engage with Saudi Arabia, to which he responded:
“Engaging with the country doesn’t mean that we agree with everything that a country is doing.”
“We are actively engaging with key partners around the world,” Carney said.
“Lecturing countries from afar is an ineffective strategy. It’s satisfying, but it’s ineffective.”
Carney was also asked about ongoing negotiations with the United States. Reporters pressed him on whether there had been any progress in trade negotiations with Trump amid tensions surrounding the North American Free Trade Agreement. “I’ll keep you posted,” Carney said.
[Aljazeera]
Seven students and a teacher have been killed in Bangladesh after a landslide hit a girls’ school inside a refugee camp
The Islamic study centre in the coastal city of Cox’s Bazar was buried by mud and debris on Wednesday afternoon, sparking frantic search and rescue efforts. It is unclear how many people were inside the school.
The country has been battered by monsoon rains since Sunday, with several deadly landslides reported in Cox’s Bazar.
More than one million Rohingya people live there in what is the world’s largest refugee settlement, having fled a deadly military crackdown in Myanmar.
Rescuers pulled 13 people from the mud that engulfed their school hut, eight of whom died, the Refugee Relief and Repatriation Commissioner Mohammed Mizanur Rahman said.
“Some of them are seven, eight, 11 or 12 years old,” Panna Akhter, a local district officer, told BBC Bangla.
The other five children were taken to hospital for treatment.
Earlier, officials said other landslides had killed at least eight Rohingya refugees, including five children, since Sunday.
Thousands of Rohingya, one of Myanmar’s many ethnic minorities, were killed and more than 700,000 fled to neighbouring Bangladesh during an army crackdown in Myanmar in 2017
The group, which is primarily Muslim, are denied citizenship by the government of Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority country.
Many face poor living conditions in Bangladesh, living in makeshift homes of tarpaulin and bamboo on steep hillsides.
More rain is forecast for the coming days, with authorities issuing warnings for more landslides and floods, and evacuating families in high risk areas.
(BBC)
Dharmaraja and Kingswood set for historic rugby clash on Saturday
Sri Lankan singer Mariazelle Goonetilleke passes away at the age of 68
Tensions erupt in Indian state after 11-year-old raped and murdered
US and Iran trade attacks as Khamenei is buried
Several spells of showers will occur in the Western, Sabaragamuwa and North-western provinces and in Galle, Matara, Kandy and Nuwara-Eliya districts
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