The Ministry of External Affairs on Saturday said that “allusions” made about Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an email message that is part of the Jeffery Epstein files “deserve to be dismissed with the utmost contempt”.
The “Epstein files” refer to millions of documents, emails, photos and videos released by the US department of justice detailing the activities of Epstein, an American financier and convicted child sex offender, and his social circle that included politicians, celebrities and several public figures.
India’s external affairs ministry was commenting on reports about a purported email that was part of a fresh set of Epstein files made public on Friday.
The email from Epstein to a person named Jabor Y had a reference to one of Modi’s visits to Israel.
“Beyond the fact of the prime minister’s official visit to Israel in July 2017, the rest of the allusions in the email are little more than trashy ruminations by a convicted criminal, which deserve to be dismissed with the utmost contempt,” ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said in a statement.
Modi had visited Israel between July 4 and July 6 that year.
The comment came after the Congress on Saturday criticised Modi in connection with the reference.
Party leader Pawan Khera said on social media: “It is a matter of national shame that Jeffery Epstein – a convicted human trafficker, child sex offender and serial rapist from the USA – wrote that Prime Minister Narendra Modi took his ‘advice and danced and sang in Israel for the benefit of the US president. They had met a few weeks ago. IT WORKED!’”
The possibility of the Indian prime minister having “proximity to such a disgraced figure raises serious questions of judgement, transparency and diplomatic propriety”, Khera said.
“It is now clear that the prime minister had a direct unexplained association with Jeffery Epstein whose infamous list of elite clients has wreaked havoc…” the Congress leader said.
The “inexcusable association” between Modi and Epstein is a “matter of national dignity and international reputation”, Khera said, demanding “immediate accountability” from the prime minister.
The Congress demanded that Modi must clarify what he was allegedly taking Epstein’s advice for, “to what benefit of the US president was he singing and dancing” in Israel and what the message “it worked” meant.
Donald Trump was in his first term as the US president at the time.
Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in his New York jail cell.
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