Lately, Union Minister for Petroleum Hardeep Singh Puri finds himself in a precarious position ever since senior Congress member and the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha (LoP), Rahul Gandhi, alleged that the former had links with late American financier and convicted paedophile Jeffery Epstein.
On February 11, Rahul, during the Union Budget Session, claimed that Puri and industrialist Anil Ambani’s names have appeared several times in the Epstein Files, released by the United States Department of Justice on January 30.
The Congress leader hit out at Puri, claiming the India-US interim trade deal was a “wholesale surrender” with India’s energy security handed over to America and farmers’ interests compromised.
Rahul displayed a printed screenshot of the alleged emails where Puri is mentioned. “You have sold our mother, Bharat Mata… Because they are choking. We can see fear in the eyes of the Prime Minister,” he added.
Puri did acknowledge he met Epstein but downplayed it, saying only “on a few occasions between 2010-2014 as part of the International Peace Institute (IPI) delegation.”
Admitting there was an exchange of just one email (this) between them, he clarified it was with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (copied to Epstein). “We talked about ‘Make in India.’ My interactions with him had nothing to do with charges against him (Jeffery),” Puri said.
But that is not the case.
On the official website of the United States Department of Justice, the name “Hardeep Puri” appears 46 times, while “Hardeep” 430 times and “Hardeep Singh Puri” 163 times, a stark contrast of what the Union minister claimed.
“Ek hamari, ek hamari, ek hamari member of parliament hai, (laughs) lady member, she took me aside, she said many of these people are very jealous, maine kaha yaar yaar, kuch hua hota to main baat karata, main to issi pe rah gaya, and after that, anyway, on a serious note…” (“There is an MP, a lady MP, she took me aside, she said many of these people are very jealous, I said, yaar, if something had happened then I would speak. But I remained stuck with this.)” Puri made a butt of jokes of a very serious issue and casually remarks some people are “jealous.”
In 2008, Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to sex trafficking of minors to well-known, powerful people around the globe. He and his partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, had for years recruited minor children, especially girls as young as 12 years, who faced sexual abuse and rape at Little St James in the US Virgin Islands. Epstein died in custody in August 2019 while awaiting trial.
The minister emphasised that his interactions with Jeffery were before he joined the Modi government.
But this email is dated November 13, 2014, after he joined the newly formed Modi government. In the newly released emails, Puri corresponded with Epstein not once, as he claims, but multiple times, and even met him at his Manhattan townhouse on at least three occasions.
On June 23, 2014, Epstein introduced Puri to Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, who was scheduled to visit India. Puri replied in the affirmative, “happy to assist/facilitate Reid Hoffman’s visit.”
On September 24, 2014, Epstein sent an introductory email to Hoffman: reid – hardeep . hardeep reid. reid hardeep is your man in india.
The following day, on September 25, Reid replied to Puri and Epstein, “Hardeep: very nice to meet you. Jeffrey has exquisite taste in people” and asked the minister if they could meet in Silicon Valley or New York in 2015.
Puri responded (via iPhone) and gave date options for the meeting.
I can come to California to meet you on 2, 3 or 4 October. Thereafter, 11 and 12 October could be possibilities. I have to be back in India thereafter.
He concludes the email by praising Jeffery’s “taste in people.”
Reid and Puri met in early October 2014 in Silicon Valley.
Then, on November 13, 2014, Puri wrote a long email detailing India’s growing 200 million internet users and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” campaign.
You can find the attachment here.
This is the email Puri stressed in his recent press conference. “My interactions with him had nothing to do with charges against him. He disliked me. Epstein had called me ‘two-faced.’ For them, I was not the ‘right person,” downplaying the entire issue.
But the emails continued.
In October 2014, Epstein emailed Puri asking for his help in securing a visa for his assistant to attend a wedding in India. “Hardeep, I need a favour, my asst (assitant) needs a quick visa so she can attend a wedding in India, is there someone at the consulate she can talk to?” the late American financier had written.
Puri connected him to Pramod Bajaj, then a former Indian consul in New York and later ambassador to South Sudan. “Bajaj now works with me, would organise this,” stated his email.
On this charge, Puri thundered at the press, asking if connecting people is wrong, “Is this showing a favour?”
Two months later, in December, Puri emailed Jeffery when he would return from his “exotic island” and “have fun.”
When questioned, Puri underplayed, saying he may have used the term “exotic” because a member of Epstein’s staff described the property in those terms. On “have fun,” he said that it was an expression that he uses and “should not be read into.”
Puri and Jeffery last exchanged emails in June 2017, two years before the latter’s alleged suicide. The email read: Jeff, if you are back in town, I would like to drop by for a chat. I am here till the 10th,” to which Epstein replied, “Phone tomorw (tomorrow)? I return 15th.”
Asked why he stopped meeting the convicted sex offender, Puri said, “My association with Jeffrey Epstein was within my capacity as a senior advisor to the International Peace Institute (IPI) in 2013.”
“When you get to know that a guy is what he is, what contact are you going to have with him, plus I have nothing in common with him,” he added.
The mainstream Indian media has also soft-pedalled the Puri-Epstein relations. There have been no big debates, no discussion, ever since emails surfaced.
