New Delhi: Multimillionaire conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar, who is currently lodged in Delhi’s Mandoli prison, was once in the high-security Tihar Jail where he was living a life of luxury and running his outside operations with ease. He turned his cell into his office.
Sukesh, who has been in judicial custody since April 28, 2017, was initially lodged in Tihar’s jail no. 1 before he was shifted to jail no. 7, 4, 8, 3, 10 and 4. However, the irresistible tendency of his criminal mind was not settled even inside the high security prison.
Sukesh was incarcerated at Tihar in 2017 after he duped politician T.T.V. Dhinakaran of Rs 50 crore.
Delhi Police’s Crime Branch arrested Sukesh on Dhinakaran’s complaint and he was sent to jail.
What was astonishing was that the conman continued to run the racket from inside the premises of the South Asia’s largest prison complex.
He is also accused of extorting Rs 200 crore from the family of former Fortis Healthcare and Ranbaxy Lab promoters Shivinder and Malvinder Singh from inside the prison premises.
But how did he do that? Certainly there was an inside help, but the price of that help was also too high.
A CCTV footage of Sukesh’s cell also went viral on social media. In the video he could be seen using a barrack alone, which was meant to be shared with dozens of other inmates.
According to sources, he had access to a mobile phone, and the area around his bed was covered with curtains to hide the illegal<br>activities from CCTV cameras that were underway.
The sources added that the mobile phone had a SIM card from a foreign country for which he was reportedly giving Rs 60-75 lakh per fortnight as a bribe to jail officials.
This phone was allegedly used for extortion-related calls from within the jail and also to con businessmen kept inside the prison for some crime.
Later, the Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW) arrested five top Tihar officials. However, the ways adopted by Sukesh to con the former Fortis Healthcare and Ranbaxy Lab promoters had been extremely “impressive”.
Sukesh, while calling Shivinder’s wife, claimed himself to be Union Law Secretary Anoop Kumar and offered her to help in getting bail for her husband.
In August 2020, he used a spoofing app to pretend that he was calling from the then Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad’s home. Before disconnecting every call, Sukesh used to say “Jai Hind”.
Not to forget, all of this happened from inside the prison. Usage of a mobile phone inside a jail is a matter of concern, however, it can be tackled with the usage of apt technology.
The EOW also found that on a few occasions, guests were also allegedly allowed in his jail cell.
As per the EOW charge sheet filed in 2021, he paid around Rs 25 to 30 crore to the jail officials and staff in around one year for uninterrupted lifestyle and his needs.
The prison officials facilitated his luxuries, arranged for him to meet high-profile prisoners inside jail premises including the Chandra brothers, Karti Chidambaram, Moin Quraishi, and Ratul Puri, among others.
As per the sources, sometimes Sukesh used the “cell turned office” of jailed Unitech Group owner Sanjay Chandra, whom the conman allegedly got close to.
Notably, the Enforcement Directorate, in an application to the Supreme Court, mentioned that Sukesh had repeatedly committed offences, including that of money laundering during his incarceration by subverting the legal system and prison rules with the help of his knowledge of technology and his “ability to con people”.
According to the sources, ‘Big Boss’ fame Nikki Tamboli, ‘Bade Acche Lagte Hai’ fame Chahat Khanna, Sophia Singh, and Arusha Patil met Sukesh in the Tihar jpremises and he introduced himself as a producer of the southern film industry.
In October this year, taking a tough stand against the deep-rooted nexus of criminals and jail authorities, Delhi Lieutenant Governor (L-G) V.K. Saxena had granted the approval to the EOW to investigate 82 officials of the Delhi Prison Department under the Prevention of Corruption (POC) Act, 1988.
Recently, Sukesh in a series of letter to L-G also alleged that he met Satyendar Jain, the AAP leader who is also in Tihar, several times.
He even claimed that Jain in 2017 came to visit him in jail, during which he even spoke to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on an iPhone provided by the AAP leader in which the name was saved as AK-2.
“After my arrest in 2017 for the two-leaf Symbol Corruption case I was lodged in Tihar Jail and was visited by Satyendar Jain, who held the portfolio of jail minister, multiple times, asking me if I had disclosed anything related to my contribution to AAP to the investigating agency which arrested me,” one of the letters wtitten by Sukesh to the L-G said.
Sandeep Goel, the Directorate General of Prison, was transferred this month after allegations emerged that he had helped Sukesh.
In another letter to the L-G, the conman also alleged that he had paid Rs 12.50 crore to Goel to live a luxurious life in prison.
–IANS