2,500 Calls Made By Arms Dealer Sanjay Bhandari To A Person Not Traceable

New Delhi: Sanjay Bhandari, the arms dealer being investigated for an array of financial crimes, seems to have enjoyed easy access to politicians.

Mr Bhandari is being investigated by the income tax department for allegedly organizing a benami or proxy-bought property for businessman Robert Vadra, the son-in-law of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi.

Call records for Mr Bhandari, who was raided last month, have established that he was in regular contact with the BJP's Sidharth Nath Singh, as well as the top aide to Aviation Minister Gajapathi Raju. While Mr Singh has said their close links are personal and not professional, the Aviation Minister's aide, Appa Rao, has said the opposite after call records showed he spoke to Mr Bhandari 355 times in one year.
 The most-frequent number dialed from Mr Bhandari, however, was a number registered in the name of Phungcham Wungmai.  Over the past year, 2,591 calls were made to this number, which is now switched off. The address for Phugcham Wungmai leads to a flat in a South Delhi neighbourhood popular with young North Eastern students who have moved to Delhi to land jobs.

The flats located at the registered address are inhabited by young women who work in call centers and did not want their identities revealed.

But this mysterious name has been haunting them as well - they say income tax officials visited them a month ago, searching for Phungcham Wungmai, a name unfamiliar even to students who say they have been living here for years.
 Online, there is no trace of Wungmai, another missing link for investigators who are trying to determine if the name is a cover -and if so, for whom.

So far, the inquiry into Mr Bhandari has spread from Delhi to the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands, Dubai, Sharjhah and London, where the house described in the tax report as secretly belonging to Mr Vadra is located.

Mr Vadra has said through his lawyers that he has no dealings with Mr Bhandari or the London house. But Mr Vadra's lawyers have also refused to comment on whether emails sent by Mr Vadra and his executive assistant that discuss large payments for a London property are authentic. The emails are cited in the tax officials' report which has triggered an international inquiry into a matrix of shell firms.

Another focal point of the inquiry against Mr Bhandari is an alleged payoff 7,50,000 Swiss fancs for the deal landed in 2012 by Swiss manufacturer Pilatus to supply trainer jets to the air force, a contract that is being re-examined by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar.