New Delhi: Union Petroleum Minister Hardeep Singh Puri He said Wednesday that during the eight years he spent in the United States, he encountered convicted child sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein As a private citizen, he had contact with him as a member of the Independent Commission for Multilateralism delegation after his retirement from the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and had only one email exchange with him.Responding to allegations in the LS by Opposition leader Rahul Gandhi and Congress MP Priyanka Gandhi about his links with Epstein, Puri said the meetings took place before he joined the federal cabinet in 2017 and the details were made public.Epstein called me ‘two-faced’ because I wasn’t interested: PuriIn a press conference, Puri said that the day after meeting with LinkedIn founder Reed Hoffman in November 2014, he sent him an email detailing the “extraordinary opportunities for internet-based economic activity in India” and that Epstein was copied on the email.“At least read why my name is in it. Rahul mentioned the Epstein files during a brief interaction with me at the Constitution Day celebrations in the Central Hall of Parliament on November 26, 2025, and I even sent a note to Rahul a day later. But he chose to ignore the note,” he said.“I am the secretary-general of the Independent Commission for Multilateralism and my boss, Thayer Lord-Larsen, knew Epstein. I met Epstein 3-4 times as part of the ICM delegation,” Hardeep Puri said, adding that his interactions had nothing to do with the crimes Epstein was involved in.Congress MP Rahul Gandhi, while addressing the Lok Sabha earlier in the day, said the US Department of Justice had documents on Epstein that mentioned Hardeep Puri and claimed that the Prime Minister was under pressure (over Puri’s links with Epstein). “I’m not even a member of the government; I’m just a private citizen. In another email exchange with Larson in December 2014, Epstein called me ‘two-faced’ because I had no interest in his activities,” the minister said.
