On 24 May 1971, based on a telephone call purportedly from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her secretary P.N. Haksar, the chief cashier at the Parliament Street branch of the State Bank of India handed over Rs 60 lakh to a stranger posing as the PM's courier. The money was supposedly meant for secret operations in East Pakistan. When the chief cashier approached the PMO for a receipt, he was told that neither Haksar nor the PM had given any such instructions. He had been duped.
Within a few hours, the Delhi Police recovered the cash and caught the man responsible for the heist, a former army captain-Rustom Sohrab Nagarwala. Subsequent events-which included a botched police investigation, bungling by the lower judiciary, mysterious deaths of the accused and the principal investigator, and Indira Gandhi's inexplicable silence-led to the rise of several conspiracy theories.
Based on police records, press reports, depositions before the Justice Jaganmohan Reddy Commission and its report, The Scam That Shook a Nation is the first authoritative work on the scam, its investigation and its afterlife as a study in political corruption.
About the Author
Rasheed Kidwai is a journalist, author and political analyst. He is a visiting fellow at the Observer Research Foundation [ORF]. A former associate editor of The Telegraph, Kidwai tracks government, politics, community affairs and Hindi cinema, and has written several books on these topics.
Prakash Patra began his career as a journalist in 1980 and has worked with National Herald, The Pioneer, Hindustan Times and The Telegraph in different capacities.
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