Shivraj Singh Dabi has appealed to Sushma Swaraj for help.
By Raif Karerat
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An Indian IT professional, now working in India, and closely associated with the BJP government, Shivraj Singh Dabi, 42, has been found guilty of charges relating to computers of his previous employer – deleting and damaging data on the computers, a felony in the U.S., where he was charged. Dabi now wants the Indian government to help clear his name.
The U.S. District Court, Eastern District California, Sacramento, charged Dabi with unlawful flight to avoid confinement after he did not appear in the court for hearing after seeking bail against the house he had bought for nearly half a million dollars.
Dabi had returned to India in 2007 with his wife and two children, then aged one and six, and hasn’t returned to the U.S. since. He had fought the case for 9 months before running out of savings.
Earlier this year, in March, the FBI put Dabi on the ‘Wanted’ list because a warrant with a charge of Unlawful Flight to Avoid Prosecution (UFAP) was pending against him.
“I wrote to the court authorities but did not hear from them. I was not in hiding and expected to hear from them initially and then thought they were no longer interested in the case. Since, nobody contacted me all these years. I thought it was over,’’ Dabi said.
Recently, Dabi — an engineering graduate from Indore — got in touch with the Indian representative of the FBI, and was told in June that the warrant against him had been withdrawn along with his status on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. He was then directed to get in touch with the prosecution authorities in Sacramento, according to The Indian Express.
Dabi had worked as a senior consultant of the Madhya Pradesh e-Governance Mission Team and is a key member of the ruling BJP’s IT cell in the state, till he lost his job after the FBI put him on the ‘Wanted’ list. The court case had earlier took away his job in the US. He admitted he did not tell his Indian employers about the pending court case, and they did not ask or verify.
Dabi says that the FBI has now withdrawn his name from the ‘Wanted’ list.
“I and my family are under intense depression,’’ Dabi wrote in an appeal to the Foreign Secretary, seeking his intervention and “support to provide me fair chance for my right to appeal.” He said he also planned to seek help from External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.