After a documentary and a show on a streaming service, now comes a new book on Abdul Kareem Telgi, the fake stamp paper scam kingpin.
Khanapur-based activist Jayant Tinaikar, who says that he brought to light the scam, is writing the book, “The stamp paper scam. One Man, 19 years and Telgi’s takedown”, which, he says, is a tell-all tale.
The book is being published by Mumbai-based publisher Story Mirror. It will be released in Mumbai on September 23. The publishers are now accepting pre-orders.
The book is about Abdul Kareem Telgi who was arrested by the Bengaluru police in 2001 and convicted in 2007. He died 10 years later of multi organ failure while serving his jail sentence.
A documentary, Money Mafia, on Discovery Plus channel, and a series, Scam 2003, on SonyLIV, have been made on the issue. The series is based on the Hindi book, Telgi Ek Reporter Ki Diary, by senior journalist Sanjay Singh. A full-length Hindi feature film, Mudrank, was made in 2009 albeit with a disclaimer that it was a work of fiction.
Mr. Tinaikar, who hails from Khanapur in Belagavi district, was a regular at the corner table of the Bangalore Press Club canteen in the early 2000s. He used to describe his story, in Kannada with a heavy Marathi accent, to all those who were willing to listen. He would say that he was the one to have exposed the scamster [Telgi].
He says that his book is not just about how he provided information that led to Telgi’s arrest but also about the scam that affected the country’s economy. “I have revealed some very important information in the book and that will cause inconvenience to a lot of people, including officers and politicians,” he said.
“It took me five years to awaken the police of two States who were sleeping on the issue. I wrote countless letters to various authorities, including the Income Tax Department, from 1996 to 2001,” he says.
He complains that his alerts were not taken seriously. “Once I wrote to the President, complaining that a boy who was selling fruits in the Khanapur Railway Station had amassed unaccounted for wealth. But I got an acknowledgement saying that my letter was forwarded to the Department of Railways for further action,” he said.
He remains bitter about not being given enough credit. “The governments of Maharashtra and Karnataka must have given me 10% of the property seized from Telgi. Instead, the Karnataka government gave me a paltry sum as an award. I was the real whistleblower in that case,” he said.
“Of course, the Khanapur Police deputed a police constable for my security, when my life was in danger. I should be grateful to them for that,” he said.
Jayant Tinaikar belongs to a Saraswat Brahmin family that migrated from Tinai, a village in the Western Ghats near Dudhsagar falls, to Khanapur decades ago.
His father Mukund Tinaikar set up a hotel in the taluk headquarters town that still operates. Jayant Tinaikar got suspicious of the sudden growth of Telgi who was being called Kareem Lala and Telgiseth in the villages of Khanapur.
“I had seen the Telgi family having a hand-to-mouth existence after the death of their Lad saab, who was a class four employee in the Khanapur Railway Station. The three brothers collected fruits like jackfruit, cashew and pears from the jungles and sold them in the railway station. When Abdul Kareem enrolled for B.Com in Gogte College in Belagavi, he worked part-time to pay his fees. But in less than 15 years, he returned to Khanapur as an extremely rich man. Telgi was also giving large donations to youth clubs, temples, mosques and mahila mandals. He funded cricket matches and routinely organised trips to holy places. Strangely, Telgi did not seem to have political ambitions. This raised my suspicions,” Mr. Tinaikar said.
“Every month, Telgi’s brothers would take hundreds of the faithful by train to the dargah at Ajmer. Telgi would come to meet them at Ajmer during those trips. I alerted police officers in Bengaluru about one such trip, where he was arrested,” Mr. Tinaikar said.
Senior police officers say that a tip-off from Mr. Tinaikar led to Telgi’s arrest at Ajmer. In the documentary, G.A. Bawa, former Assistant Commissioner of Police, reveals that he contacted Mr. Tinaikar following instructions from the then Police Commissioner H.T. Sangliana.
However, some others are not very sympathetic towards Mr. Tinaikar. Some police officers in Khanapur say that Mr. Tinaikar and Telgi were close acquaintances who then turned adversaries. “It will not be wrong to say that Mr. Tinaikar was a beneficiary of Telgi’s largesse. He began complaining against him only after they fell out,” said a retired police officer.
“We have to acknowledge the fact that Mr. Tinaikar had been raising questions on Telgi for years. He had been regularly writing to various investigating agencies and governments. However, his claim that he was the whistleblower in the scam is not fully justified. His information to the Karnataka police had little importance other than the arrest of the prime accused,” says R. Srikumar, retired Director-General of Police and IPS officer, who headed the investigation team.
Mr. Srikumar sanctioned a cash award to Mr. Tinaikar as per rules.
“The question before us now is not how Telgi was arrested or convicted, but whether attempts at faking government documents in hardcopy or digital format are still going on and what are we doing about it? I hope books, films or TV series about the issue make us more vigilant so that we don’t fall prey to such scams and that we demand proper legal action against them,” Mr. Srikumar said.
