Rich & famous figure in list

New Delhi: A now-deceased underworld don, a politician, industrialists and an ex-cricketer are among those with alleged off-shore links. More Indian names came up in the "Panama Papers" expose along with a report on how an aide of underworld don Dawood Ibrahim used a set of 17 entities to buy properties abroad.

Named in the second list, with some repeats, are: Politician Anurag Kejriwal, industrialists Gautam and Karan Thapar, business people Ranjeev Dahuja and Kapil Sain Goel, jeweller Ashwini Kumar Mehra, former cricketer Ashok Malhotra and pharmaceuticals maker Vinod Ramachandra Jadhav.

Also named in the list are IT consultant Gautam Seengal, agribusiness owner Vivek Jain, retired government employee Prabhash Sankhla, and garment exporters Satish Govind Samtani, Vishal Bahadur and Harish Mohnani. On Monday, reports indicated that Bollywood superstars Amitabh Bachchan and his daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai were directors in companies in Panama.

The two did not immediately respond, despite efforts to contact them. Others named in the report were Sameer Gehlaut of Indiabulls and KP Singh of DLF. These apart, Vinod Adani, elder brother of industrialist Gautam Adani, politician Shishir Bajoria from West Bengal and Anurag Kejriwal of Loksatta Party were also alleged to have companies in tax havens.

All of them have since denied any wrong-doing. The expose on Tuesday said Mossak Fonseca, the Panama law firm that helped in setting up off-shore companies, sought to stonewall every effort by New Delhi to get into the bottom of the issue, even as in some cases the Indian authorities themselves floundered.

This apart, the elder brother of Gautam Adani, also wanted his name changed to Vinod Shantilal Shah, dropping the family name. The paper said earlier Vinod and his wife were two directors in the off-shore entity, and later his wife made room for their son Rakesh. On Iqbal Mirchi, the associate of fugitive don Dawood Ibrahim, who died in London in 2013, the expose alleges that he and his family took the off-shore route to buy properties in countries like Cyprus and Turkey.