A day after a British newspaper reported that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had helped Lalit Modi, the founder of the Indian Premier League who is currently a fugitive accused of financial misconduct, to get British travel documents, the businessman's lawyer alleged at a press conference in Mumbai that his client had been hounded by security agencies because he had spoken about the mysterious death of businesswoman Sunanda Pushkar in January 2014.

Pushkar, who was associated with the Kochi Tuskers Kerala franchise and wife of Congress member of parliament Shashi Tharoor, was found dead in her hotel room. A year later, the Delhi police filed an FIR stating that she had been murdered. Lalit Modi's lawyer, Mehmood Abdi, alleged that his client had received threats from the underworld since he had issued a series of tweets in 2010 about Pushkar's holdings.

 

 

 

Abdi also claimed that Interpol had not actually issued a blue collar notice for his client, which requests authorities of various countries to locate, identify or obtain information about someone involved in a criminal investigation. The lawyer claimed that the information about the notice had been "fabricated" by vested interests.

Stating that the Modi case had been argued in Indian courts during the regime of the previous United Progressive Alliance government, the lawyer claimed that External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj was not involved in any conflicts of interests. Even though Swaraj's daughter, Bansuri Swaraj, was Modi's lawyer, Abdi said this happened before Swaraj's party was in power.

"This is a political jamboree," Abdi declared. "Some people are trying to destabilise the popularly elected government."

He also attempted to suggest that Lalit Modi had not received a quid pro quo for helping Swaraj's nephew secure admission to a British law university in 2013. "Why do you assume it was some back-door admission to a university?” Abdi said. “It could be that Modi was just helping him get an admission form. What is the big deal in doing something for someone as a social obligation?"

Abdi reiterated Swaraj’s claims that she had helped facilitate travel documents for Lalit Modi purely on "humanitarian" grounds, comparing his case to that of Sarabjit Singh, the Indian man convicted of terrorism in Pakistan. "Even though Sarabjit Singh was accused of terrorism, all of India stood behind him asking for him to be returned on humanitarian grounds,” Abdi said. “But has Lalit Modi committed any terrorism? He has not been convicted of any crime."

Earlier in the day, Lalit Modi had issued a series of tweets claiming that the press conference would yield explosive revelations.

 

As it turns out, Modi's lawyer left the conference without handing out any of the documents he had waved at the television cameras because, he claimed, they were too bulky to photocopy. Besides, he said, he needed to have something to tell the press tomorrow.