Hyderabad: City-based businessman Ravi Mantha, who also reportedly helped Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his 2014 electoral campaign, was among high-profile people who met convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
According to the files released by the US Justice Department, Mantha not only corresponded with Epstein, but also seemingly met him. However, nothing on record indicates any criminal activity.
A trail of emails reveals that Mantha, who translated “A Journey: Poems by Narendra Modi,” directly wrote to Epstein and also contacted him through his office. Emails from late 2017 show that Mantha, in fact, met Jeffrey Epstein that year and discussed treatments.
In 2008, Epstein pleaded guilty to sex trafficking minors.
One of the emails from Mantha to Epstein (through his office) reads, “Also, please remind Jeffrey that we met before, in January. We had a great hour of conversation, but he was not convinced with my protocols, and we ran out of time to get deeper into the process. I am just putting that out there to refresh his memory…
I have since then treated 1000 people for chronic, with excellent results. I am happy to come at 4:30pm if you still want to meet. if not I totally understand. Best wishes.”
According to the files released by the Justice Department, Mantha was introduced to the indicted child sex offender by a man named Gino Yu.
Emails show that on January 11, 2017, Yu introduces the Indian businessman to Epstein, saying, “Ravi Mantha. He’s developed a healing dality that is amazing. Let me know if you can meet him.” The interactions also show that Mantha was to meet Epstein later as well in New York, but the meeting was seemingly cancelled. The records do not mention any women or anything on the lines of trafficking.
When Siasat.com contacted Mantha for a comment, he said, “I actively practice as a holistic healer of chronic pain and wellness coach and I have a lot of patients and people I have treated over the last 12 years all over the world, including Richard Branson and Deepak Chopra and Epstein a long time ago.”
He said he never socialised with Epstein and “that is quite clear from the communications.”
Mantha is also known well in Hyderabad’s elite circles, and his character also features in the movie “Srikanth,” a film about a visually impaired industrialist who gets help from the businessman to set up his own industry after going through hardships.
The Epstein files
Jeffrey Epstein was an American financier who was indicted for alleged sex trafficking, but he died before his trial. He made his fortune by providing tax and estate services to billionaires and cultivated a social circle comprising the elite from across the world. His dark side has over the last few years been revealed after he was indicted and the US Justice Department began releasing files of his wrongdoings.
Epstein pleaded guilty to charges of sex trafficking minors to well-known, powerful people around the globe in 2008. His partner, Ghislaine Maxwell, and him had for years recruited minor children, some even as young as 12, 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.
Epstein reportedly procured underage girls and young women who were also sexually abused by him and allegedly by his associates. In fact, the files also mention Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
The Union Minister for Petroleum, 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.
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.
