Indian opposition Congressman Pawan Khera has been arrested at New Delhi’s international airport for insulting India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and alluding to his alleged favorable treatment of the Adani group, recently charged with fraud.
The opponent had boarded a flight on Thursday to attend a plenary session of his party, Indian National Congress, in Raipur, when he was escorted by police officers for questioning, according to the newspaper ‘Times of India’.
The opposition has denounced his arrest as an attempt to prevent the plenary session following recent raids on other party events. Later, the Supreme Court has directed the Dwarka court to grant interim relief to Khera after he apologized for the remarks against Modi.
Specifically, the oppositionist referred derogatorily to Modi during a press conference to demand a probe by a parliamentary committee against the Adani group, headed by businessman Gautam Shantilal Adani.
Khera made a pun on the prime minister’s name — «Narendra Gautamdas Modi» — that clearly alluded to his links to the businessman, who faces fraud allegations by investment firm Hindenburg Research.
In its dossier, the firm compiled the findings of more than two years of research into the activities of Adani Group, accusing the Indian conglomerate of engaging in a «blatant stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over decades.»
In response to the allegations, Adani Group defended the «malicious» and unsubstantiated nature of the report published by Hindenburg Research, «designed to have a deleterious effect on the value of Adani Group companies’ shares.»
Since its report, the Adani Group has cut its market value by more than $100 billion (91.165 billion euros), causing Gautam Adani, who had come to occupy the second position among the world’s largest fortunes in the Bloomberg index of billionaires, to fall to 21st place in a few days.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
