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What TV doesn't, print can't; we deliver.
NEW DELHI: Karti Chidambaram, son of senior Congress leader and former Union Minister P Chidambaram was on Thursday questioned by the CBI for more than six hours in connection with alleged visa for bribes.
The Congress Member of Parliament denied the charges levelled against him and described all the cases against him as bogus.
Karti, who on Wednesday skipped the CBI summons, appeared before the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials at its headquarters here at 8.30 am. He left the CBI office after six and a half hours at 2 p.m.
On Wednesday, in a cryptic tweet, Karti said, “Status of the cases foisted on me: Aircel – Bogus, INX – More Bogus, Visa – Most Bogus.”
In a statement issued to media outside CBI headquarters, Karti, who is also a Lok Sabha MP said, “It does not intimidate me that the centre is once again using its agencies to accuse me of a malicious and completely fabricated charge.”
“Previously, the agencies have gone after me based on the statement of an undertrial murder suspect. Now, they are basing their bogus charges on the alleged actions of a deceased person, whom I have never met. I intend to continue to fight every one of their motivated attempts to target my father through me,” he said.
The Congress leader further said, “I am not associated with this visa issue directly, indirectly, vicariously or even telepathically!”
“The allegations against me by the CBI are ludicrous, to say the least. I categorically deny all of them,” he said.
He also stated that he has no relationship whatsoever with any of the corporate entities mentioned in the FIR in which he has been named as an accused.
“I’m neither aware of them, nor have I ever been associated with them or any of their representatives in any manner. I say with certainty that I have never facilitated even a single Chinese national in their visa process, let alone 250,” he said.
He also said that has no knowledge of the procedures, processes and formalities that need to be fulfilled to obtain visas related to project work in India. “Further, I know no person who has the authority to issue such visas,” he claimed.
Lambasting CBI, Karti said, “I have also never known the person (now deceased) whose alleged action triggers this charge. He has never been examined by the CBI, and now, never can be.”
Slamming the central agency’s actions against him in several cases, he said, “In the last seven years, I have been raided six times, without cause or evidence by the central government’s agencies, which have sadly become a single party’s machinery to fulfil its political vendetta.”
He also stated that professionals associated with him are being targeted and harassed. “Their lives are being wrecked and freedom is taken away, just like mine have been in these last many years. My travel has been restricted and I’ve been made to do rounds of the courts even to visit my daughter at her university. I have full faith in the judiciary of our great country and trust the institution to stand by the truth. But if this is not harassment, not a witch hunt, then what is?” he questioned.
The CBI on May 17 searched the premises of P Chidambaram and his son Karti in Delhi as well as in Chennai.
The fresh case was registered by the federal investigative agency alleging that Karti received a bribe of Rs 50 lakh for facilitating the visas of over 263 Chinese nationals for the Talwandi Sabo Power Plant in Punjab’s Mansa from 2010 to 2014 when P Chidambaram was holding the portfolio of Union minister of home affairs.
Besides Karti, the CBI has named his close associate S Bhaskararaman, Mansa-based private company’s representative Vikas Makharia, Talwandi Sabo Power Limited, Bell Tools Limited and unknown public servants and private persons.
