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Both Kapil Wadhawan (pictured) and Dheeraj Wadhawan had CBI surveillance warnings against them.
Mumbai
Business moguls Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan, who are being investigated in multiple cases of financial fraud, were arrested Thursday at Mahabalestra’s Mahabaleshwar for violating the national blockade COVID-19, police said.
Alerted by local residents, police found 23 people, including members of the Wadhawan family, promoters of the shadow lender DHFL, on their farm at the hill station, a Satara state district official said.
Sources said that despite the closure, the family managed to reach the city more than 250 km from Mumbai in five cars on Wednesday night. They had passes issued by a senior IPS official, a family friend, who called his visit an “emergency.”
According to local police officials, the Wadhawan family along with their cooks and servants traveled from Khandala to Mahabaleshwar on Wednesday night in their cars, even when the Pune and Satara districts are sealed amid a permanent blockade for containing coronaviruses.
Among the 23 people was a bodyguard from Italy, one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus crisis, the sources said. The police have filed a case against all of them and have quarantined them.
Both Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan received surveillance notices issued on their behalf by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and are charged in Yes Bank and DHFL fraud cases. The CBI is considering taking them into custody once their quarantine ends.
Last month, they cited Execution Directorate (DE) citations for the third time in the money laundering investigation against Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor and others, citing the coronavirus pandemic.
The Wadhawan brothers, who denied having acted badly in their dealings with the bank, said “health is a priority.”
While opposition BJP sought an explanation from the Shiv Sena-NCP congressional government, Maharashtra’s interior minister Anil Deshmukh said the state will investigate the incident.
“It will investigate how the 23 members of the Wadhawan family obtained permission to travel from Khandala to Mahabaleshwar,” Deshmukh tweeted.
