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The Curious Incident Of Mukesh Ambani's Aston Martin In The Night-Time

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Mukesh Ambani (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the night of December 8, an Aston Martin Rapide, owned by Reliance Ports, a private company controlled by Mukesh Ambani, India’s richest person, hurtled down South Mumbai's Peddar Road which is a busy, traffic-choked street during the daytime and not far from Antilla, the 27-story sky palace where Ambani resides. Two security vehicles followed the speeding sports car on its post-midnight spin.

In no time at all, the driver lost control ramming into an Audi saloon which, buoyed by the sudden impact, crossed the road divider; it then hit a Hyundai sedan. According to reports, as the Aston Martin came to a halt due to a dislocated wheel, the driver made a quick getaway by jumping into one of the security cars that were tailing him. More than three weeks since that incident, Mumbai’s cops are astonishingly, none the wiser about the mystery driver’s true identity.

The woman driver of the Audi initially told the cops that a young man was at the wheel of the Aston Martin. But the next day, Bansilal Joshi, 55, a long-time Ambani employee presented himself at the police station and owned up to being the driver of the rogue car. He claimed that he’d taken the Aston Martin out for ‘routine maintenance’, unearthly hour notwithstanding, and had fled because he’d panicked. As for the security cover, that was standard protocol for all Ambani cars whether a family member was in them or not. While the cops recorded Joshi’s statement they refrained from arresting him as they weren’t sure if he was indeed the culprit.

So who was the real culprit? While the cops have maintained a stoic silence so have most of India’s leading television channels that take pride in being champions of investigative journalism. (note: Ambani has a financial association with the owners of Network 18, a media group that owns several TV channels and is a licensee of Forbes) But speculation online has been rife that Akash Ambani, Mukesh’s older son was allegedly involved in the smash-up. An undergrad from Brown University, Akash works at Reliance and is being groomed for big things by his dad. In 2011, he was spotted beside Mukesh in London when a $7.2 billion deal was signed between Reliance and BP .

I reached out to a Reliance spokesperson who confirmed that the Aston Martin was a ‘family car’ and that Joshi was driving it at the time of the accident. There were “no deaths, no injuries,” he maintained. Also, Joshi hasn't been fired for wrecking the luxury car that costs over $700,000 because "an accident can happen to anyone."

Meantime, the Audi owner has modified her initial statement and identified Joshi as the driver of the Aston Martin. She and the owner of the Hyundai car that was damaged in the accident, no longer have anything to complain about. On Christmas day they took delivery of a brand new Audi A6 and a Skoda Superb sedan respectively.

Which brings us to the second mystery: who was the secret Santa who paid for their upgraded cars? The Audi owner disclosed that she was compensated by the insurance company and not by Reliance as some reports were insinuating. But according to the Economic Times newspaper, the insurance companies involved have denied settling either of the claims and said that replacing a damaged car with an upgraded model is out of the question.

Fitting the pieces of this puzzle may be a no-brainer, but this Indian-style whodunit isn't likely to be solved anytime soon, if at all.