11 Dec, 2006 MUMBAI: The lawyer for film star Aishwarya Rai denied on Sunday that the former Miss World had received about Rs 50 lakh in hawala money last year after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) reopened an old investigation into the matter. Kulkarni said that Rai "was shocked and she said that it was unfortunate that she had been targetted with such allegations though her accounts were totally clean". Sources said that the ED's revival of the investigation into a 2005 case raises several questions. The alleged transaction was for an event which was to be held in Dubai sometime in 2003-04. The ED found evidence of alleged hawala payments by a Dubai event manager to his Indian agent, one Manun Thakur Talenting, when they raided the latter's Andheri office in mid-2005. A laptop owned by Manun allegedly revealed the receipt of a few crores of rupees via the hawala route. Since Manun could account for only Rs 7 lakh of the money received, the ED suspected that actors—including Rai, Akshay Kumar, John Abraham, Bipasha Basu and Dino Morea—who were to participate in the event were paid by Manun. The raid also revealed payments to other persons, including some businessmen. Though the ED did investigate those businessmen, it left the celebrity actors alone. Now the probe against Rai has been revived, though ED sources remained tight-lipped throughout Sunday. Sources said it was odd that the ED had waited all this while to take up the probe against the actors. Rai's growing closeness to the Bachchan family is being seen as a possible reason for the ED reviving a part of the probe, a source said. Sources said that the alleged payments were meant for a show that did not eventually take place. Even if the money was allegedly for the "booking amount" to be paid to the actors before the show, it was unclear why the payments had come in 2004-05. The Customs department's separate probe into the mystery parcel that contained 23,000 euros and arrived from Rotterdam is also still on, despite the Customs giving Rai a clean chit. VARANASI: If the owners of a prominent retail store here are to be believed, Bollywood star Aishwarya Rai departed from the city not just with prasad of Kashi Vishwanath and Sankat Mochan temples, but also with signature Banarasi saris worth Rs 50,000. After offering prayers at two prominent temples in this city on Monday, Aishwarya apparently sent one of the persons hosting her and Bachchans to Jalans, a retail shop in Kabira Complex in Durgakund locality, to fetch some choice Banarasi saris. "As many as 11 saris of different hues including Banarasi Jamawar, Banarasi Katan and Khaddi georgette, worth Rs 50,000 were procured from our shop presumably for Aishwarya Rai,"said Vishnu Jalan, the shop-owner, adding that the saris cost between Rs 3,500 and Rs 5,500
