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'Police threw me in van’: Billionaire Pankaj Oswal's daughter on arrest in Uganda
Vasundhara Oswal, Indian billionaire Pankaj Oswal's daughter, spoke about her illegal detention and arrest in Uganda in murder case of her father's employee.
Indian billionaire Pankaj Oswal's daughter Vasundhara, who was illegally detained for five days and illegally arrested for two weeks in Uganda, has spoken up about her time in the African nation.
Speaking to PTI, Vasundhara said her human rights were violated by police officials. She was falsely charged with the kidnapping and murder of Mukesh Menaria, an employee of her father Pankaj. Menaria was later found alive in Tanzania.
“My human rights were grossly violated. For example, when they proceeded to raid the site, they did not have a search warrant,” Vasundhara said. “When I asked them to present a search warrant, they said, ‘We’re in Uganda. We can do anything. You're not in Europe anymore,' and they basically proceeded to raid,” she added.
She went on to recall that police in Uganda forced her to accompany them to the Interpol office on the pretext of meeting their Director. “I did not want to do [this] that same day,” Vasundhara said.
A male police officer later picked her up and threw her inside his van, saying, “No, you have to come today only. It's not going to happen tomorrow anytime otherwise".
She was later forced to give a statement to Interpol while being accompanied by a civil lawyer instead of a criminal lawyer. “They didn't give time for us to even arrange a lawyer as they said that if I didn't give a statement then I would be held indefinitely,” she said.
Vasundhara said she was detained in a cell after giving the statement and was asked to give $30,000 and her passport for a police bond. “I obliged but I didn't get a police bond. They threw me back inside the same cell,” she recalled.
She even presented an unconditional release order from the court the next day but wasn't released and was illegally detained for another 72 hours.
“All this while, I didn't know what I was being detained for,” she said. The police then took Vasundhara to a lower-level magistrate court and charged her with ‘kidnap with attempt to murder’, which she claims is not allowed as this can only be done in a high court in Uganda.
Vasundhara was then thrown into a prison for two days with criminals convicted for petty crimes like theft. She was later moved to another prison, where the country houses convicted criminals like murderers and human traffickers. “I spent the next two of my ordeal in [that] prison,” she said.
“Even after [police] found that [Menaria] was alive, they still proceeded to keep me in prison on those charges. They found him on October 10, about a week to two weeks before I got bail,” Vasundhara said.
She also claimed that her business competitors paid-off about 20 lawyers that were hired by her to present her case. She finally got bail on October 21.
