From Russia, with love

One of the scandals that is causing a lot of embarrassment in Congress circles pertains to the alleged pay-offs made by a Russian company, Technopromexport, to politicians and bureaucrats. The Russian company has supplied equipment to NTPC’s power station in Barh, Bihar.

The scam came to light when one of the financial task forces created to keep track of big funds after 9/11 found Rs 40 odd crore deposited in a London bank account held by the Russian company’s agent Rabina Khurana. Promptly, the CBI was tipped off by London about the presence of such an account and began going about the business of freezing the account. But the day they did it $4 million were pulled out from it. The question is who tipped the owner of the account to pull out the money before the CBI could freeze it and where did the money go? CBI later raided the premises of the former NTPC chief, CP Jain, who signed the agreement with Technopromexport, Khurana and the former private secretary to the late power minister, PM Sayeed. There were allegations that the money deposited in Khurana’s account was meant for the Congress Party funds. So to whom did the $4 million withdrawn on the day the money was frozen really go to?