Man killed, buried under temple’s ‘havan kund’ in Punjab’s Sangrur, 2 held
London, No prophet is recognised in his hometown, the saying goes. Vijay Mallya, the prophet of high life, would vouch for the accuracy of this adage. After being spotted in the earlier matches in this tournament, he’d vowed that he’d go to every India game to “support” the team. But India’s fans didn’t like his act of supporting the Indian team — today, when he came into the ground, he was heckled by the Indian fans. Horror of horrors, they called him a chor, a thief!
“Dekho, chor ja raha hai —look, there goes the thief,” people chanted near a gate into the stadium when they spotted him. “Chor, chor,” they continued. Mallya looked flustered and quickly walked away, but had to stop at the gate as the warden checked his ticket, and the people behind him continued to call him “chor, chor” or “chor saale”.
Mallya says he’s determined to support India, but it seems giving his love to the Indian team isn’t making him very popular with the fans.
Indian legal authorities are pursuing Mallya over loans he owes to various Indian banks, allegedly to the tune of over Rs 9,000 crore. He was arrested by Scotland Yard in April but released the same day on bail, and is fighting the Indian government’s extradition procedure here.
Mallya lives the life of a billionaire village squire here, residing in a £11.5m mansion in a village, Tewin, some 20 miles north of London. Maybe he’d crave for the love of his fellow Indian expats here. Or maybe not, for izzat badi hai ya daulat? Daulat, right? He also made an appearance at a dinner hosted by Indian skipper Virat Kohli to raise funds for anti-human trafficking charity Justice and Care.
