Prominent jeweller flees Bahrain

A well-known Indian jeweller in Bahrain, who is also a prominent socialite on the island, fled the country last week leaving more than 60 employees in the lurch and what is understood to be millions of dinars of unpaid loans to several banks.Many in the Indian merchant community believe Suresh Bhagawanji, group managing director of Bhagawanji Jewellery, had planned his departure together with his management team since his entire management team left with him.

They believe that he not only left huge unpaid loans, which some estimate to be around BD 15 million, but also dismantled all the machinery at his gold manufacturing factory and shipped it abroad. "The machinery at his factory was so large that a huge warehouse was needed to accommodate this. Dismantling the machinery and shipping it abroad cannot be done overnight and this shows he has planned his departure very well and many believe his management team was hand in glove in this fraud," claimed one merchant who insisted on anonymity.

Some believe that he had also melted the gold jewellery in the company's four retail outlets in Bahrain – two in Manama and one each at the Regency Intercontinental Hotel and East Riffa – and taken this out of Bahrain.More than 10 of his workers left the country the day before Bhagawanji and his management team left the island. The impression given to the remaining workers were that these 10 workers had been sent to Italy and Korea for training to work in the new factory which the company plans to open in Korea.

According to sources here, there was a total of 60 employees working for the group, and 14 of them were Bahraini women. Some workers were made redundant last month, while some others were given release letters to find jobs elsewhere.More than 30 workers are the worst affected as they live in the company's accommodation for which the rent has not been paid for months. The accommodation and the factory are located in the same building. The grocery store stopped supplying food to these workers as the company owed around BD 1,000 and the workers were not paid their salary for a few months.

The Indian embassy and the Indian Community Relief Fund (ICRF) are trying to help these workers.
The chairman of ICRF, Ahmed Humayun, told Gulf News: "We are trying our best to help them. Those who want to go home can do so. As for the others who want to stay on the island and seek jobs elsewhere, we are trying to arrange their release through the immigration authorities. In fact, the workers are in touch with ICRF, which has organised food for them for about two weeks."

According to sources, for the past two years or so, the community members and others had sensed something of this nature considering the lavish lifestyle of Bhagawanji and his wife. "They used to travel for about 20 days a month to cities all over the world, from London, Paris, and New York to Africa and the Far East, and on many occasions, people questioned his source of income, especially in view of the huge loans he had taken from banks," the sources claimed.

Bhagawanji's father came to Bahrain more than 40 years ago and started his gold manufacturing business on a very small scale. He died in the 1970s and the business was taken over by his five sons, the eldest of whom is Suresh Bhagawanji, who has lived in Bahrain since his childhood. Since then, they expanded their operations by opening branches in London, Dubai, Singapore, and some African countries. The whereabouts of Bhagawanji ,who is in his early 40s, is not known, although many think he is in London.