Jabalpur Medical College dean found dead in Delhi hotel
Dr Arun Sharma, the dean of the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College in Jabalpur, which has been linked to the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, was found dead in a hotel in Delhi early this morning.
His death came just a day after Akshay Singh, a journalist for Aaj Tak television channel, a part of the India Today Group, who had travelled from Delhi to Madhya Pradesh to investigate the scam, died in mysterious circumstances.
In both the cases, the police have ruled out any foul play on the basis of prima facie evidence but said they would probe all possible angles.
Several people who were witnesses or accused or otherwise linked to the case have died over the last five years, leading to calls by the opposition Congress and other parties for a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the case. According to various estimates, this number ranges between 25 and 45.
Those who died included Shailesh Yadav, 50, son of Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav. He was found dead at his father's residence in Mall Avenue area of Lucknow on March 25 this year.
Dr Sharma had arrived in the capital yesterday and was due to travel to Agartala this morning as part of a Medical Council of India (MCI) inspection team.
When he failed to respond to the wake-up call from the desk this morning, the hotel staff tried knocking on the door and finally used the master key to enter the room. A doctor who was called in by the hotel said that he was dead.
The Jabalpur college which Dr Sharma headed was one of the institutions in the state linked to the Vyapam scam, a massive recruitment and admissions racket, involving politicians, officials and middlemen, in which imposters were allowed to take entrance examinations in exchange for huge sums of money. Several politicians, including former state education minister Laxmikant Sharma, officials and aspirants, have been arrested in the case so far.
Dr Arun Sharma
Dr Sharma was assisting the Special Task Force probing the scam by providing documents on irregularities in the entrance examinations, sources said.
Incidentally, his predecessaor, Dr D K Sakalle, was found burnt to death in his home exactly a year ago, they said.
Delhi Police officials said they had found no signs of foul play in the case of Dr Sharma's death. Forensic evidence had been collected from the room and the body had been sent for post-mortem examination. An empty bottle of alcohol was found in the room, they said. The doctor had also vomited and there were signs of heavy drinking, they said.
Akshay Singh died when he took ill after a meeting with the parents of a girl, Namrata Damor, whose name had figured in the case and had died in mysterious circumstances, with her body being found near railway tracks in Ujjain district in January 2012.
Reports from Jhabua quoted Namrata's father Mehtab Singh Damor as saying that Akshay, 38, and two others had visited their house in the afternoon. According to them, Akshay, who was waiting outside Damor's house, suddenly started frothing at the mouth. He was rushed to the civil hospital and then to a private hospital, but doctors could not revive him. He was later taken to a hospital in nearby Dahod town of Gujarat, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Police in Dahod and doctors who performed the post-mortem examination on the journalist's body said they had found no prima facie evidence of foul play. His viscera had been sent for examination and the report was awaited, they said.
Akshay Singh
Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal were among those who attended the journalist's funeral at the Nigambodh Ghat in the national capital today.
"Deeply anguished at the untimely death of journalist Akshay Singh who was investigating the Vyapam scam in MP," Mr Gandhi said on micro-blogging site Twitter. "My condolences to his family," he added.
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan told newspersons in Bhopal today that he would write to the Special Investigation Team (SIT), appointed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court to probe the scam, to look into the death of the journalist, too.
"The death of the Aaj Tak journalist is very unfortunate. My condolences are with the family of Mr Akash Singh," he said.
He said a post-mortem examination had been conducted on the journalist's body and the facts would emerge when the report became available.
He also felt there was no need for a CBI probe in the case, stressing that the state government was not interfering with the ongoing SIT investigations in any way.
NNN
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