Express news service
New Delhi, January 5 six months after NRI designer Anand Jon was jailed in Los Angeles over multiple charges of sexual assault and molestation, his mother Shashi Abraham is now in the Capital to seek help from the Manmohan Singh government.
Citing the case of Mohammed Haneef — arrested on terror charges in Australia and later released following New Delhi’s intervention — Abraham said Jon is a victim of “professional rivalry” and “racial slur” because of his “meteoric rise to fame”.
Abraham is now trying to get an appointment with External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and the Human Rights Association. She claims she did not get “assurance” from External Affairs Minister for State E Ahmad. “If the Indian government could come forward to help Dr Haneef when he was unjustly accused in Australia, why can they not do the same for my son?” Abraham asked.
“The whole thing started right after The Wall Street Journal evaluated his brand for $10 million,” Abraham claimed. “He was going places in an industry where not many Indians had made any breakthrough. I guess this is a conspiracy by his detractors to pull him down,” she said.
On Thursday, Abraham's daughter Sanjana had convened a press conference in Mumbai, announcing that they had enlisted the help of Mumbai-based lawyer Majeed Memon. “I am sure that if we get the opportunity of a fair trial we could prove that these complaints are baseless,” Sanjana said.
Known for dressing celebrities like Paris Hilton, Paula Abdul and Ivanka Trump and touted by Newsweek as the designer to watch out for in 2007, 33-year-old Jon’s fall from grace was pretty swift.
(Appeared in Indian Express)
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