Hindujas, Vaz still make news in U.K.

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, MAY 11. Even in the heat of a hectic election campaign, the two politically controversial Asian families - the Hindujas and the Vaz - continue to make headlines. While the Hindujas were on the front page of The Guardian today over a large donation they wanted to make to a royal charity but were told to keep their cash because of the cloud of Bofors hanging over them, the Vaz family was in the news in connection with an inquiry into their business links.

The Guardian said the Prince's Trust - the charity patronised by the Prince of Wales - turned down a generous offer by the Hindujas in 1996 on the advice of the intelligence services that the brothers - Srichand and Gopichand - were being investigated in India in connection with a gun deal. This was a year before the arrival of the Labour Government, which went on to accept a million-pound donation from them for the Millennium Dome, marking the start of a relationship with the Hindujas, the consequences of which are still unravelling.

A Trust spokesperson, however, told The Hindu that ``we are not able to substantiate'' The Guardian report. The only donation the

Trust received from the Hindujas was in 1990 - £ 1,25,000 spread over four years. ``Since then we have had no donations from them,'' she said adding that in the early 1990s the Hindujas had offered to support the Trust's activities in India but the talks ``weren't taken forward.''

This, however, had nothing to do with any intelligence reports. The Hindujas had been supporting the Trust's social events such as film premieres and they were on its ``mailing list''.

The Guardian maintained that the intelligence reports received by the Trust were a part of the procedures designed to protect the royal family from sleaze. They were similar to the ones that had led the Tory Government in 1991 to reject the Hindujas' applications for British citizenship. The newspaper quoted a source close to the Trust as saying ``we were warned off by intelligence reports and decided that even if the evidence was inconclusive, we would always be very cautious in our dealings with them.'' The spokesperson was not able to confirm this.

In the Vaz ``affair,'' the spotlight was on Mr. Keith Vaz's wife, Ms. Maria Fernandes, who has been asked by a parliamentary watchdog to furnish all the documents relating to her company, Mapesbury Communications, which allegedly received £ 1,200 from the Hindujas Foundation to arrange a function. If she does not furnish the documents, she faces contempt of Parliament and could be fined, according to media reports.

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Section  : International
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