State-sponsored kidnapping gone wrong, alleges Mehul Choksi's wife

Priti Choksi, wife of fugitive Indian businessman Mehul Choksi, has alleged that the entire episode since her husband went missing was a state-sponsored scheme that went wrong.

While talking to ANI, she raised a series of questions to make her case and also accused Barbara Jabarica, Mehul Choksi's alleged girlfriend, of wrongdoing.

"How is it possible that the CCTV cameras near Jolly Harbor all simultaneously stopped working when my husband was abducted? If anything this is only further evidence of the state-sponsored kidnapping attempt against my husband," she asked.

Priti alleged that the entire episode of Choksi's disappearance and reappearance exposes the lies of the Antiguan Prime Minister, Gaston Browne, who said that her husband went to Dominica with Barbara Jabarica, who later said that she never went to Dominica.

She also posed several questions in the defense of her husband and when asked if he was lying, she said, "Why would he willingly leave his passport in Antigua?"

Raising further questions, she asked, "Why would he have hurt marks and injuries on his body? Why would he not carry any luggage, personal belongings, cash, etc.? Why would he leave his keys in the car while the car was at Jolly Harbor? Why would his family/ lawyers be unaware of his antecedents? Why would he not have made prior arrangements at a hotel to stay in Dominica? Why would the coast guard have found him stranded on an island?"

The wife of the fugitive businessman, in an interview with ANI, also questioned Barbara Jabarica's claims about Mehul Choksi. In her interviews with several Indian media outlets, Jabarica had made several sensational claims against Choksi.

Recently, Mehul Choksi in a complaint had alleged that Barbara Jabarica did not attempt to help him while he was being beaten up and placed on small watercraft. He stated that the manner in which Jabarica conducted herself clearly indicated that "she was an integral part of this whole plan to abduct".

Jabarica in her interviews said that she had met Mehul Choksi over breakfast on the day he was allegedly abducted, but left for the airport and was on the other side of the island that day.

Choksi went missing from Antigua on May 23 and was caught in Dominica. He was charged with illegal entry into Dominica by police after he allegedly fled Antigua and Barbuda in a possible attempt to avoid extradition to India.

The 62-year-old fugitive is wanted in India in connection with the Rs 13,500 crore fraud in Punjab National Bank.

Meanwhile, the Dominica Ministry of National Security and Home Affairs had declared Mehul Choksi a "prohibited immigrant" on May 25.

( With inputs from ANI )