By IANS,
Panaji : Customs officials had maintained double standards vis a vis Goa Education Minister Atanasio Monserrate, who was detained for 18 hours at the Mumbai airport for carrying crores of rupees in foreign exchange last week, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Saturday.
The opposition party’s secretary in charge of Goa said that while customs authorities virtually vilified Pakistani Sufi singer Rahat Fateh Ali Khan when he was caught at the New Delhi airport with $1.24 lakh in foreign currency and two demand drafts of $10,000 and $8,646 in February this year, but they played secretive when Monserrate was detained with a sum “which was five times in excess of standard regulations”.
“The customs officials are hiding something. They had been called from the office of the union minister of finance and other politicians from Goa. When Fateh Ali Khan (Rahat) was detained, they gave minute by minute reports to the media about the incident,” Aarti Mehra told a press conference at the party headquarters in Panaji.
Mehra also demanded a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe in Monseratte’s financial affairs.
“Is he into hawala business? He has himself said that he used to go abroad with large sums of money earlier too. The CBI should be asked to probe the hawala angle as far as the minister is concerned,” Mehra said.
Monserrate’s detention at the Mumbai airport last week rocked the Goa legislative assembly, whose proceedings were disrupted for over four days, with the opposition insisting on a discussion on the minister’s conduct.