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THE LOOT OF INDIA
By M H AHSAN
Public memory being notoriously short, few would recall today that it
was Congress Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao who, after the Government
of India was informed by Swiss authorities that kickbacks from the
Bofors deal had been deposited in Mr Ottavio Quattrocchi's bank
accounts, had facilitated the Italian wheeler-dealer's escape
literally in the cover of the night.
Today, we are witness to another Congress Prime Minister, Mr Manmohan
Singh, helping Mr Quattrocchi to walk away with more than $4 million
of tax-payers' money by allowing his Government to brazenly subvert
the judicial process. If his Congress predecessor let Mr Quattrocchi
slip out of India instead of impounding his passport to keep Ms Sonia
Gandhi, who was then in political purdah, in good humour, Mr Singh has
allowed the Italian fugitive to loot the Indian exchequer to please
his political boss who now runs the party and heads the United
Progressive Alliance.
This is no act of omission, nor is it true that the Prime Minister was
blissfully ignorant of his Law Minister despatching the Additional
Solicitor General to London to plead with the Crown Prosecution
Service to de-freeze Mr Quattrocchi's accounts, that were frozen in
July 2003. This despite an Interpol red alert for this personal friend
of the Congress's first family who is wanted in India to stand trial
in the Bofors bribery case.
On the contrary, the very fact that this Government knew of the
British authorities' decision to de-freeze the account on January 11,
the same day the story of this stunning scandal broke in media, and
yet did not bother to prevent Mr Quattrocchi's robbery, speaks volumes
about his complicity. Mr Singh's silence on the issue is no evidence
of his innocence; this is the silence of a man who is guilty of
compromising the Government of India's integrity to appease the power
behind the throne.
By refusing to speak up and be heard he has not come across as a
helpless but honourable man; he looks like a pathetic caricature who
is willing to go to any extent to do the bidding of Ms Gandhi in order
to cling on to the Prime Minister's office to which his disregard for
probity and rectitude has fetched dishonour. He clings on to Ms
Gandhi, turning a willing blind eye to gross abuse of power, in this
instance to enrich her Italian friend with more than Rs 20 crore that
belongs to the Indian people.
The Supreme Court, while admitting a PIL against what is easily the
biggest scandal in recent years, on Monday has asked the Government
and the CBI to maintain status quo on Mr Quattrocchi's London
accounts.
It has also instructed the Government to ensure that the money is not
withdrawn. Such instructions, no matter how well-intentioned, have
come rather late in the day. We can take it for granted that between
January 11 and January 16, Mr Quattrocchi has emptied the two accounts
where the Bofors payola was parked, and is sniggering at those who
tried to prosecute him. There can be no halfway house after this
officially sanctioned loot of the nation. The Prime Minister must be
made accountable and his cronies with whom he conspired at the behest
of Ms Gandhi should be held responsible. This country is not run by
the Sicilian Mafia.
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 NEWS GALLERY
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