Collected ₹11,000 for INS Vikrant, not ₹57 cr, says Somaiya; cops summon him

The Mumbai Police’s decision to summon Kirit Somaiya comes after a Mumbai court rejected pre-arrest bail requests filed by the Maharashtra BJP leader and his son Neil.

MUMBAI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kirit Somaiya has been told to appear before the economic offences wing (EOW) of the Mumbai Police for questioning in connection with a cheating case registered against him, a police officer said on Tuesday.

BJP leader Kirit Somaiya has denied the charge that the ‘Save INS Vikrant’ cmpaign collected ₹57 crore, saying that only ₹11,000 were collected at one-day event (HT File Photo/Bhushan Koyande)

The case pertains to the alleged misappropriation of ₹57 crore claimed to have collected through crowdfunding to save decommissioned aircraft carrier INS Vikrant from being scrapped. Somaiya denied the charge on Tuesday, saying they collected just ₹11,000 at the symbolic protest event held in December 2013

Somaiya, 68, has been told to appear before the EOW on Wednesday.

The summons was issued a day after a Mumbai sessions court rejected Kirit Somaiya’s pre-arrest bail request, observing that a prima facie case had been made out against him. Around the same time that EOW officers issued the summons to Somiaya on Tuesday, the sessions court also decided to reject a pending pre-rearrest bail application filed by Kirit Somiya’s son Neil.

The Trombay police in suburban Mankhurd registered a first information report (FIR) against Kirit Somaiya and others on April 7 on a complaint filed by an ex-serviceman who alleged that Kirit and Neil Somaiya among others, did not deposit the money collected from the public to preserve INS Vikrant

INS Vikrant, a Majestic-class aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy, played a key role in enforcing the naval blockade of East Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1971. The aircraft carrier, which joined the navy in 1961, was decommissioned in 1997. There was a demand to convert the warship into a museum but the plan did not take off. In January 2014, the ship was sold and scrapped in November that year.

In a video message put out on Twitter early on Tuesday, Somaiya rubbished the charges. The BJP leader said they did hold a one-day symbolic event to make their point against the scrapping of the aircraft carrier on 10 December 2013 and collected just ₹11,000. Ten years after the symbolic event, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut has started floating “bogus allegations” that ₹58 crore was collected and diverted without any documentary evidence to stop him from targeting the Uddhav Thackeray government.