Rajeev Kumar thought he was designing a website for a Bollywood movie. Only later, did he realise that the website was actually dedicated to wanted Malaysian fugitive Michael Soosai.

The 25-year-old designer, who is based in Bihar, northeast India, said he was led to believe that the site was promotional material for an upcoming Hindi movie on a famous underworld don from his country.

"They said it was a Bollywood movie script. I saw some parts which contained famous characters like Chota Rajan and did not have a clue that it was about a real Malaysian guy," he said in a telephone interview today.

"They wanted a horror-look to the design. They gave me a few hours to come up with page samples and after a few designs they chose the current one ," he added.

(Chota Rajan is a fugitive Indian crime lord, whose network stretches to various parts of the world, including Malaysia)

Shaken by the whole controversy, Rajeev said if he knew about the real nature of the content, he would not have accepted the project.

"Am I going to get into trouble for this?" he asked.

No hidden codes

Contrary to popular believe , the designer also said the website did not contain any hidden codes or messages.

Numerous parties interested in the case had purportedly decoded 'hidden crypts' on the site, which they claimed camouflaged words like 'mind games' and 'you go to sleep when you wake up'.

He said that the design was based on his own vision of a horror movie.

Meanwhile, Rajeev who yesterday said he met the two men who hired him, claimed today that he had only met one of them personally.

"Here's what happened. I was approached by a mediator who came to my office to tell me about the job. Later on, I went to a hotel to meet the clients. My colleague was already there and he had met with one of the two clients.

"The man - big and heavy with dark complexion - was already on his way up to the hotel room when I got there. I didn't see him face to face. We then sat down with the mediator and the other guy who was a Chinese Malaysian looking man," he explained.

He said this when asked if one of the men had been Soosai, whose photograph was emailed to him by malaysiakini last night.

However, he cannot identify the man with the dark complexion because he didn't meet him.

According to him, the 'Chinese-looking' man was a 'cool' person who spoke good English and of average height. He estimated the man's age to be around 30 to 35.

Paid 4,500 rupees

Rajeev also claimed that he was misunderstood yesterday when he said he received US$500 for his services.

"When I said 500 dollars earlier, I actually meant 500 (Indian) rupees. That was part of the payment. In total I received 4,500 rupees (RM400) for the work," he clarified.

The money was for his design work and registration of the site on the Internet.

Rajeev also said that he has not been contacted by Malaysian police or Interpol officers regarding the case.

Malaysian police have been reported to have intensified investigations into Soosai's whereabouts after the website was discovered.

The site contains details of corrupt dealings between Soosai and the police - including current federal deputy CID director Mokthar Hassan when he was the Kajang district police chief.

Soosai, accused of faking his own death, is wanted in Malaysia in connection with 17 criminal cases.

He is believed to be hiding somewhere in India.