Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: Union petroleum minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday said during the eight years he spent in the US, he met convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein “only three to four times” as a private citizen, as part of a delegation of the Independent Commission on Multilateralism he was associated with after his retirement from the Indian Foreign Service, and had just one email exchange with him.Responding to allegations of leader of the opposition Rahul Gandhi and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi in LS about his links with Epstein, Puri said the meetings took place before he joined the Union Cabinet in 2017, details of which were in the public domain.Epstein called me ‘2-faced’ as I wasn’t interested: PuriAt a press conference, Puri said he had sent an email to LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman a day after meeting him in Nov 2014, detailing a “terrific opportunity for internet-based economic activities in India”, and Epstein was copied on that communication.“At least read why my name appears in it. I even sent a note to Rahul a day after he referred to the Epstein files during a brief interaction with me at the Constitution Day celebrations in the Central Hall of Parliament on Nov 26, 2025. But he chose to ignore that note,” he said.“I was secretary general of Independent Commission on Multilateralism and my boss Terje Rød-Larsen knew Epstein. As part of the ICM delegation, I met Epstein 3-4 times,” Hardeep Puri said, adding that his interaction had nothing to do with the crimes Epstein was involved in.Speaking in Lok Sabha earlier in the day, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi said the US department of justice has files on Epstein that name Hardeep Puri and alleged that the PM was under pressure (over Puri’s link with Epstein). “I was not even part of govt; I was a private citizen. In a separate email exchange with Larsen in Dec 2014, Epstein called me ‘two-faced’ because I was not interested in his activities,” the minister said.
