Co-accused Kashinath Tapuria exposes Hasan Ali's hawala operator links with 2 women politicians

MUMBAI: In a statement to Enforcement Directorate that is sure to kick up a controversy, a close aide of Hasan Ali Khan revealed the alleged hawala operator's links to the political class, including two high-profile women politicians from Andhra Pradesh.

The statement of Kashinath Tapuria, a Kolkata-based businessman and co-accused in the money laundering case against Khan, has been video-recorded in accordance with the Supreme Court's directive.

Tapuria told ED that Khan spoke to him about an intimate relationship with a woman politician from Andhra Pradesh in the year 1994-1995. In his statement to ED, part of the agency's I,000-plus page chargesheet against Khan placed before a special court last week, Tapuria said Khan claimed to have a "very good influence" on the politician who has since moved out of the state.

The businessman said he saw the woman politician and Khan together when Tapuria and the alleged hawala kingpin stayed at a Mumbai hotel in 1996.

Tapuria also provided details of Khan's alleged proximity to another woman politician from Andhra Pradesh, a vocal former Union minister. He said Khan told him about his desire to gift a diamond -- sourced from a Mumbai-based hawala operator -- to the former Union minister whom he called an important person. Khan also disclosed he had met this woman politician through a Delhi-based Congressman accused of involvement in anti-Sikh violence in 1984, Tapuria told ED.

Khan also claimed to have an indirect line with an influential ruling party politician in Delhi through a Mumbai-based builder, according to Tapuria. The businessman said Khan told him not to worry about ED investigations, claiming that he could get the matter sorted out by using the builder's links to the powerful politician.

ED officials questioned Tapuria in detail about Khan's links with politicians and others.

Tapuriah also spoke of Khan's links with a senior Congress leader from Andhra Pradesh currently associated "in some way" with airport projects in Mumbai and New Delhi, as well as a former chief minister of the state.

Khan's alleged links to Andhra Pradesh politicians can be attributed to his being born and brought up in Hyderabad and his alleged career as a conman in the city. Till the late 90s, Khan along with his former wife Mehbooba Khan, lived in the upscale Banjara Hills area. He moved to Pune in 2000 and is now married to Rheema Khan.

Khan also claimed proximity to a tainted politician from Maharashtra, now in custody for a high-profile scandal. However, Tapuria doubted his version, emphasizing that he also knew the politician in question. "I personally knew him (the politician) and had met him during the Nehru centenary marathon meet in Delhi in 1986," Tapuria said.

During investigations, ED probed Khan's proximity to Syed Abbas Naqvi, a hawala operator from Mumbai, who the agency alleged had emerged as a key player in cash transactions for the former. During his interrogation, Tapuria admitted to have known Naqvi whom he identified as a building contractor.

Tapuria said he met Naqvi in New Delhi at the residence of a Sufi guru. He said he took a piece of diamond roughly valued at Rs 1.20 crore through Naqvi from his jeweller in Mumbai. Khan then took the diamond from Tapuria and told him that he would pay him for it in the next three months -- a promise he did not keep.