NEW DELHI: Pakistan has in the wake of the Mittal controversy cancelled the visas granted to a high-level team of three CBI officers.
The CBI team which included a joint director was originally granted permission last month to visit Pakistan in connection with the sensational kidnapping of four diamond merchants
But in the first week of this month the Pakistan high commission was informed that the visas for the three officers had been cancelled.
This followed India’s retaliation to the torture of the diplomat Rajesh Mittal on May 24. India expelled two Pakistani diplomats the following day and postponed the foreign secretary level talks scheduled for June 1.
The cancellation of the visas comes as a serious setback CBIs probe into the kidnapping of the four diamond merchant Delhi last September.
This would have been the sec: visit of the CBI in this case. A team comprised of Balwini Singh (DIG) and Sharad Kumar (SP) had visited Pakistan for a fortnight in January. They had met among others the former governor and chief minister of Punjab Ghulam Mustafa Khar.
The evidence collected by the CBI apparently suggests that R.Chaudary as the mysterious man who lured the diamond merchants had called himself is actually a Pakistani national.
Khar was reportedly seen in the company of Chaudary in Delhi’s Oberoi Hotel on September 16. The day the diamond merchants were kidnapping. Chaudhary had invited the diamond merchants from Bombay to meet to strike a deal. The diamond merchants Milan parekh and Shaunik parekh of Mahendrut Gautum Mehta of Goenka Traders and Rajesh Mehta of Beautiful Diamonds along with Rajesh Mehta’s secretary Anoop Kulkarni were kept in a south Delhi colony for two weeks before being released.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 26, 1992
