“The Return Gift (Arrest and Deportation of Roshan Ansari)” continues…

There was no immediate reaction from the other end. Quite understandably, he would have been a trifle upset that we had neither informed him of her arrest nor of our decision to deport her. We had also sent a Lady CBI officer abroad without keeping him in the picture, which was something against all official propriety. But, it is to his credit he didn’t say a word to express his displeasure. At the same time, he was not effusive in his praise either of what we had quietly achieved. Virendra informed me later that he too was never ticked off on any score by the Director. In fact, during the next Quarterly Meeting of senior CBI officers, which takes place every three months, the Director praised Virendra and his team for the Roshan Ansari operation in the presence of all.

The deportation of Roshan Ansari made headlines in Dubai papers. Inspector Raasam was interviewed by leading dailies and quoted extensively. She acquitted herself extremely well by holding forth on the difficulty-level of the operation and on how we had not spared any effort in reaching the murderess.

I received several calls from our Dubai colleagues expressing their gratitude. The Ministry of External Affairs was equally pleased as we had succeeded in demonstrating our commitment to mutual co-operation on law-enforcement with the UAE. Ambassador KC Singh was quoted in Dubai newspapers hailing the deportation as a milestone in the diplomatic relations between India and the UAE.

Happily, following the deportation of Roshan Ansari, Dubai reciprocated by arresting and deporting to India several absconders in the Mumbai Bomb Blast case like Eijaz Pathan, Mustafa Majnu Dossa, Tahir Taklya etc. Ravindra Rastogi, an absconding accused in a white collar crime involving fraud in claiming duty-drawback, was arrested and sent to Mumbai by the Dubai Police. Viji Wahid, another economic offender wanted in a CBI case, was summarily deported.

To be continued…