Bhopal: The Vyapam scam of Madhya Pradesh, being investigated by an SIT monitored by the High Court claimed yet another life in mysterious circumstances, the second one in two days and the 23rd one in two years.  A senior doctor probing an aspect of the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh was today found dead in a Delhi hotel, a day after a journalist investigating the scandal died mysteriously in the central Indian state’s Jhabua district.
The Congress has been calling for a CBI investigation for some time now, but the CM has brushed aside the demand saying that the investigation is already monitored by the High Court. The Congress has also dubbed it the “most sinister scam in India”. The controversy relates to alleged irregularities since 2007 in exams for professional courses and government jobs conducted by a state board whose Hindi acronym is “Vyapam”.

Home minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday there would be no CBI investigation into the Vyapam scam until a court directed the central investigating agency to look into the examination and recruitment scandal that is dogging Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s third term.

“An SIT (Special Investigation Team) is investigating this, and the SIT is not working under the Madhya Pradesh government, but under the HC’s supervision,” Singh said hours after meeting Chouhan, who briefed the home minister about the status of the case.

“Our Opposition is making an issue out of a non-issue. The matter should not be politicised,” Singh said.

“If the Supreme Court and the high court feel the SIT is not investigating the case properly and that a CBI inquiry must be initiated, the MP government would be ready for it,” he added. “A PIL was filed demanding a CBI probe into the Vyapam scam and it was clearly rejected by both the HC and the SC,” the home minister said.

Dr Arun Sharma, 64, dean of the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Medical College in Jabalpur, was found dead in his hotel room with a bottle of whisky and some medicines lying on his bed, Delhi police said.

Delhi joint commissioner Dipendra Pathak was quoted as saying the police were yet to find any evidence of foul play but were waiting for the post-mortem report.

But speculation of foul play refused to die down because Sharma is the second dean of the same medical college to have died under suspicious circumstances in the past two years.

Both he and his predecessor, Dr D.K. Sakalle, are said to have been probing charges that proxy examinees had taken the entrance test on behalf of some of their college’s students. Sakalle was found charred to death at his home, the police claiming suicide.

It has been reported that Sharma had recently handed them over 200 pages of documents. The sources would not reveal details.

Sharma had travelled to Delhi on his way to Agartala for official work. His friend and the Indian Medical Association’s Jabalpur district president, Sudhir Tiwari, today linked his death and Sakalle’s to the Vyapam scam. Speaking to a Kolkata Daily he said, “I suspect that Dr Sharma was killed by those who had killed Dr Sakalle”.

On Saturday, Akshay Singh, 38, an investigative journalist with the New Delhi-based Aaj Tak TV news channel, died frothing at the mouth in Jhabua soon after speaking to the parents of a girl found dead after her name figured in the scam.

The police had denied foul play in Singh’s death yesterday and chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan ruled out a CBI probe on the ground that the high court was monitoring the investigations.

But Chouhan did a somersault after news of Sharma’s death broke today, saying he would have no objections if the high court ordered a probe by any central agency.

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh,  has already moved a petition in the Supreme Court demanding a CBI probe into the scam.