‘Look after my children’: MP businessman’s request to Rahul Gandhi

Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh, Jitu Patwari and Kamal Nath have accused the Enforcement Directorate of torturing businessman Manoj Parmar and his wife and alleged that it was only because their children had met Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Yatra and gifted him their piggybanks with coins.

Terming it a 'political murder' instead of 'suicide', Patwari said, "Nine years CBI registered a case, and now five years later ED came into the picture. The children (Manoj Parmar's children) told me before the media that they were being pressurised to join the BJP," said Jeetu Patwari.

In the five-page note, which the police have refused to describe as a suicide note, Parmar purportedly claimed that while two FIRs had been lodged against him in 2017 by the Sehore police and the CBI for the same loan that he had secured from a bank, the Enforcement Directorate team raided his house on 5 December, 2024.

The note alleges that the assistant director of the ED, Bhopal Range, had placed his shoes on his shoulder and abused him roundly. Parmar alleged in the note that the AD told him that even if Rahul Gandhi became the prime minister, he would not be able to save him.

The only way he could save his family, Parmar alleges he was told, was if he and his children joined the BJP and gave statements against the Congress and Rahul Gandhi, who in any case would be arrested soon.

"The ED officials were abusing and intimidating the family to join the BJP and share videos against Rahul Gandhi…"If you had joined the BJP, your all problems would have been ended, he was told”, the five-page typed note addressed to the president, prime minister, Chief Justice of India, the Union home minister, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, chief of police and others held.

He also alleged that while he was forced to sign on blanks papers and the seizure list (Panchnama), he found that it made no mention of the sum of Rs 10 lakhs in cash and 70 grams of jewellery that the ED team took away with them. The seizure list does mention a sum of Rs 3.5 lakhs in the bank and four plots of property ranging from 900 square feet to a 4000-square-feet attached.

The contents in the note were corroborated by the deceased’s teenaged son who told Congress leader Jeetu Patwari on camera much of what was alleged in the note. The couple possibly confided in the children. The family went to a temple on Thursday evening, returning late at night. On Friday morning the couple were found hanging.

The ED has refused to comment though it has informally denied the allegation, claiming that the raid was part of a money-laundering investigation involving a sum of Rupees six crore in pursuance to the CBI case.

The seizure list contains signatures of two witnesses from Bhopal who accompanied the ED team to Sehore, approximately 80 kilometres away, on Friday morning.

Both the ‘independent’ witnesses in their statement averred that the search was conducted peacefully and without any damage being done (Parmar in the note had claimed that even the puja room in the house was vandalised and idols were broken). They had apparently been present throughout the search that continued for 12 hours.

Parmar also alleged that he and his family were denied food even though the ED team called for food from outside for themselves. He also complained that even when he went to the toilet, the team forced him to keep the door open and one of them would stand and abuse him.

In a poignant message addressed to Rahul Gandhi, the note adds that after his death, his children were the responsibility of the Congress Party and Rahul Gandhi.

The Congress should look after them so that party workers and supporters would get the message that the party would stand by them through thick and thin. The BJP criticised the Congress for politicising the suicide.