Pankaj Oswal’s daughter Vasundhara Oswal was detained on October 1 and remains lodged in the jail.
Indian-origin industrialist Pankaj Oswal’s 26-year-old Vasundhara Oswal has reportedly been ‘unlawfully detained’ in Uganda. And now her father has filed an appeal with the United Nations claiming that Vasundhara was ‘seized by around 20 armed men’ on October 1 when she was present at an extra-neutral alcohol plant set up by the family.
While local officials have claimed that her detention in an Ugandan jail is due to an ongoing missing person investigation, her family has asserted that the allegations are wholly untrue.
According to a post on Vasundhara’s social media platform, she was ‘detained among shoes’ for more than 90 hours, and was not allowed to bathe or change her clothes. During her tough times, she had suffered an anxiety attack, and it was not acknowledged by the officials. After being detained in the local jail since October 1, an urgent appeal has been filed with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention earlier this week.
“This is all because of corporate jealousy from a 68 year old man who couldn’t take that she, a young 26 year old woman, became bigger than him in three years of her hard dedicated work, and wanted his competition to go down no matter what,” her brother, in an open letter to the Ugandan government, has claimed, adding that she is not allowed to be in touch with her family and lawyers since the authorities snatched her phone away.
Not to miss, Vasundhara’s detention comes after her father Pankaj Oswal's recent investment of $100 million in Uganda, which he reportedly had done for the first grain-based ENA plant producer in the East African region.
A member of the renowned Oswal family, which owns the conglomerate Oswal Group, Pankaj is the son of entrepreneur Abhey Oswal, the founder of Oswal Agro Mills and Oswal Greentech. The Oswal Group Global is known for their petrochemicals, real estate, fertilisers and mining business. Pankaj, along with his wife Radhika Oswal, have been living in Switzerland for the past 10 years with their two daughters Vasundhara and Ridi after shifting from Australia.
He has now claimed that his daughter, the executive director of PRO Industries, has been detained due to “corporate and political manipulation”. She has been allegedly put under false charges by a former employee, who loaned $200,000 with Oswal’s family as guarantors. The Swiss industrialist has not only filed an urgent appeal with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, but has also written an open letter to the President of Uganda, asking for his intervention.
