Mumbai: A day after Madhya Pradesh’s Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan Friday ordered a probe in connection with searches conducted by Economic Offences Wing (EOW) at the residence and office of Church of North India (CNI) Jabalpur Diocese’s bishop PC Singh, a report has surfaced claiming a deal between Singh and Riyaz Bhati, a close associate of the underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.
Following a complaint by a Chhattisgarh-based activist Nilesh Lawrence, EOW raided Singh's residences. Lawrence had sent complaints to Prime Minister’s Office and the Enforcement Directorate, demanding a probe against Singh. The complainant alleged that Lawrence had leased out a prime property of CNI, its gymkhana, to Bhati in 2016. The CNI gymkhana, a British-era building, was leased for around Rs 3 crore.
Lawrence said there were objections to the property being leased to Bhati, a 54-year-old resident of Versova in Mumbai and a suspected aide of Dawood. He was recently accused by Mumbai Police in an extortion case and has been booked in multiple cases of extortion, land-grab, cheating, forgery and firing. He has been arrested while allegedly trying to flee the country using fake passports in 2015 and 2020.
Bhati was also named an accused along with former Mumbai Police commissioner Param Bir Singh and dismissed assistant inspector Sachin Vaze in an FIR registered at Goregaon police station in July last year. The EOW had in 2015 received a complaint which alleged that bishop Singh, who is also the chairman of the Board of Education Church of North India Jabalpur Diocese, has siphoned off fees collected from students of the educational institutes (run by the Board) to religious entities as well as for his personal usage.
It was also alleged that Singh had changed the name of the original society and became its president thereafter. During the EOW probe into the complaint, it was prima facie established that around Rs 2.70 crore had been siphoned off to religious entities and personal use between 2004-05 and 2011-12.
