The CBI woman who flew to get Monica as bonus

The CBI, which waited three long years to come face-to-face with Abu Salem on foreign territory, actually got his companion Monica Bedi as a...

The CBI, which waited three long years to come face-to-face with Abu Salem on foreign territory, actually got his companion Monica Bedi as a bonus.

Hours after Bedi and Salem landed in Mumbai, CBI Director U S Misra told Express: ‘‘We were first given intimation only about Abu Salem. Since most of her paperwork was also done, we got Monika Bedi as an additional bonus. It was nice of the Portuguese authorities to hand her back at the same time since our team was already in Lisbon.’’

Details of the Interpol-CBI exchanges over the twin extraditions reveal that the first message came from the Police Judiciary Department in Lisbon on October 19. That message said extradition of Abu Salem had been ‘‘authorised’’ and that he would be available for handover ‘‘every day’’ (only on weekdays) until November 11 to Indian officers.

The three-member CBI team, headed by DIG O P Chatwal, landed in Lisbon on October 30.

Even as the CBI team was rushing with paperwork there, a second message landed from the Police Judiciary Department on November 7. It said since the legal procedures for handover of India’s second wanted criminal, Monica Bedi, were also complete, her extradition too could be facilitated.

CBI officials say they were in a fix for a while since it was imperative that a woman police officer be sent to accompany Monica. The choice fell on a Head Constable, a familiar face at CBI since she holds an administrative charge. She was summoned and asked if she had a passport and would like to be part of an undercover operation. The answer was yes, and she made it to Lisbon.

Ritu Sarin

Ritu Sarin is Executive Editor (News and Investigations) at The Indian Express group. Her areas of specialisation include internal security, money laundering and corruption. Sarin is one of India’s most renowned reporters and has a career in journalism of over four decades. She is a member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) since 1999 and since early 2023, a member of its Board of Directors. She has also been a founder member of the ICIJ Network Committee (INC). She has, to begin with, alone, and later led teams which have worked on ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks, Swiss Leaks, the Pulitzer Prize winning Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Implant Files, Fincen Files, Pandora Papers, the Uber Files and Deforestation Inc. She has conducted investigative journalism workshops and addressed investigative journalism conferences with a specialisation on collaborative journalism in several countries. ... Read More