DIPLOMATIC DEFENCE: Lamola orders probe after SA diplomat joins Zuma’s India reunion with fugitive Ajay Gupta

International Relations and Cooperation Minister Ronald Lamola has ordered an internal investigation by his department into why South Africa’s High Commissioner to India Anil Sooklal appeared at an event with former President Jacob Zuma and State Capture-implicated businessman Ajay Gupta in Haridwar, India, last week.

Lamola’s spokesperson Chrispin Phiri confirmed this to Daily Maverick on Thursday, 2 July 2026.

Photos have appeared in Indian news media showing Zuma, Sooklal and Gupta standing alongside Swami Kailashanand Giri at a prayer meeting at the Sidipeeth Shri Dakshin Kali Temple in Haridwar on Friday, 26 June.

Democratic Alliance international relations spokesperson Ryan Smith said he had submitted parliamentary questions to Lamola “to determine why the South African High Commissioner to India, Anil Sooklal, rolled out the red carpet for former president, Jacob Zuma, and State Capture-accused, Ajay Gupta, upon a visit to India this week.

“The DA also calls on Minister Lamola to inform the Republic as to the consequences High Commissioner Sooklal will face for this act which undermines the government of South Africa.”

ANC Secretary-General Fikile Mbalula posted on Facebook that “Gedleyihlekisa [Zuma] went to go meet with the Guptas, who are fugitives of the law in South Africa. Spitting in the face of our law enforcement agencies. Instead of partying up a storm with runaway criminals, Jacob Zuma should inform the government where are these people who almost collapsed and captured our state.”

Carrying out instructions

Though the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) is officially saying no more for now, one source who requested anonymity defended Sooklal by saying he was merely carrying out instructions from Dirco head office to extend the usual courtesies to Zuma as a former head of state, who was paying a private visit to India. They said this was standard procedure and that apparently, Sooklal did not know Ajay Gupta would be at the prayer meeting and that he had inserted himself into a picture requested by Zuma.

The High Commission had cleared Zuma’s visit with the Indian government and had met him on his arrival in New Delhi last Thursday.

The source said Sooklal had been unaware until the day before the prayer meeting on Friday that Zuma was visiting India to attend the event in Haridwar and that Sooklal had independently been invited to the prayer meeting some time before by Swami Giri.

“This is a highly respected Swami, with a very large following throughout India and very influential,” the source said.

No warrant for Ajay’s arrest

Ajay Gupta is widely suspected to have been the brains behind the Gupta brothers’ enterprise, which colluded with Zuma to capture critical parts of the state during Zuma’s presidency from 2009 to 2013.

Yet “there is no warrant for arrest against Ajay from our side”, Kaizer Kganyago, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), told Daily Maverick.

Rudi Heyneke, the investigator on State Capture at OUTA, said: “It’s very difficult to find anything on Ajay Gupta because he never wrote any emails and he wasn’t the director of any company, although he was the boss man.”

Heyneke said Ajay Gupta was never a director of any company that did business with state-owned enterprises such as Transnet, Eskom and Denel, which were implicated in State Capture.

“He didn’t get his hands dirty on anything. He used his two brothers and especially the younger brother Tony (aka Rajesh)”

Indeed, the NPA did charge the two other brothers, Atul and Rajesh, for corruption, fraud and money-laundering on a relatively minor case by Gupta-Zuma standards, the R25-million contract which the Free State government paid to a Gupta-linked company, Nulane Investment, to conduct a feasibility study for the Vrede Dairy agricultural development project. The money was instead allegedly siphoned off by the Guptas into their own bank accounts.

The Guptas fled South Africa in 2018. The NPA had Interpol issue Red Notices for the arrest of Atul and Rajesh, and they were eventually arrested in the United Arab Emirates in 2022. The NPA then asked the UAE to extradite them to SA. But in 2023, a court in Dubai threw out the extradition request on technical grounds. At the time, Lamola said South Africa would appeal against the decision.

In January 2026, outgoing prosecutions boss Shamila Batohi said the NPA would submit another extradition application. NPA spokesperson Kganyago said on Thursday that “there is a Red Notice against them and the process to extradite them is under way”. He did not elaborate.

In June 2026, the NPA re-enrolled the Nulane corruption case after successfully appealing against a decision by the Free State high court’s decision to acquit all the accused.

Ajay Gupta was also not singled out for prosecution in the recommendations of the Zondo Commission, which investigated State Capture during the Zuma presidency. It did, however, recommend prosecution of “members of” the Gupta family for complicity in both the corrupt Vrede Dairy and Optimum Coal Mine scandals.

It found the Guptas collectively had gathered at least R15-billion of the R57-billion of state money “tainted” by State Capture.

Zuma’s ‘brother and friend’

In India, media reports said that Ajay Gupta was a “disciple and member” of the Sidipeeth Shri Dakshin Kali Temple in Haridwar. New clips from last Friday show Zuma, garlanded with rose petals, saying that he had come to India to visit his “brother and friend” Ajay Gupta, who had been forced to leave South Africa. Gupta had told him about a leader “and a man of God” who was a big friend of his and who had been working with him.

Zuma said that he himself had led the country, but had been “put aside”. He said that he felt he would win the elections and return to power “because people of God have been with me”.

Zuma’s visit has promoted some speculation that he was probably fund-raising either for the elections or to defray some R29-million fees after the Gauteng Division of the High Court in Pretoria and the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that he was personally responsible for the fees.

IOL quoted MK party spokesperson Sifiso Mahlangu as rejecting suggestions that Zuma’s meeting with Ajay Gupta undermined South Africa’s efforts to hold the Gupta family accountable for their alleged crimes in SA.

“President Jacob Zuma is a private citizen and is entitled to travel wherever he chooses. His visit to India is not unprecedented. He has attended this annual event for many years, dating back to around 2012…” DM