Twenty four unnatural deaths and counting: Why Vyapam is indeed a killer scam

* Narendra Singh Tomar (29), an assistant veterinary officer at Raisen (MP) and an accused in the Pre-Medical Test scam conducted by MPPEB in 2009, was the latest casualty in the infamous Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh. He died under mysterious conditions (claimed ‘heart attack’ by the police) in Indore district jail on 28 June. His father, Kailash Singh Tomar told the local media in MP, “I want justice. Narendra was killed as a part of a bigger conspiracy.” * Namrata Damor (19), a student of MGM College, Ujjain was found dead on a railway track. She had cleared her PMT in 2010 through fraudulent means with the help of Vyapam scam kingpin Dr Jagdish Sagar, who was later arrested by the Indore police. Her name surfaced in a CD recovered by the police from Dr Sagar that revealed that there had been a dispute between Sagar and Damor over a payment. Damor had apparently refused to pay any money. Her father Mehtab Singh Damor, a retired panchayat inspector, told the local press, “My daughter’s death is not normal. Why should she get her reservation done, if she had to commit suicide? She was pushed out of the running train and was killed. Police didn’t do fair investigation into this case, because big and influential people were involved in it.” [caption id=“attachment_2321140” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Vyapam logo. Image Courtesy: www.vyapam.nic.in[/caption] * Tarun Machar, a student accused in the PMT scam, was going on a motorbike with his friend to have dinner at a local eatery in Bhopal’s Kolar road. Suddenly, a vehicle, which the police could never trace, hit the bike and crushed Machar to death. Police stated it an ‘accident’. Machar was about to be questioned by the Special Investigation Team looking after the scam, but before that his voice was silenced. His father Prabhu Dayal Machar, a veterinary surgeon in village Chiklana said, “We still don’t know who was riding the motorbike that day.” Several parents of the dead in Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh are still in shock. They cannot believe their children died just like that. *** A study of the 37 dead – 24 of them due to unnatural causes - so far tells you that if you are linked to a big ticket scam in Madhaya Pradesh you could die prematurely in several ways, road accidents, suicides and mystery illnesses being the most important of them. Here’s a look at the ‘unnatural’ deaths based on police records which are in public domain already. * Road accidents (10): Barring one Tarun Machar (Ratlam), who was a student, rest nine Anand Singh Yadav (Fatehpur), Arvind Shakya (Gwalior), Devendra Nagar (Bhind), Deepak Jain (Shivpuri), Dinesh Jatav (Morena), Anuj Uikey (Mandla), Shyamvir Yadav (Gwalior), Anshul Sachan (Hoshangabad) and Kuldeep Marawi were middle men in the scam. Surprisingly, both the Yadavs, Sachan and Uikey died in road mishaps in Raisen alone. * Illness or unknown reasons (11): Shailesh Yadav (Lucknow), Narendra Rajput (middle man, Mahoba in UP), Ashutosh Tiwari (middle man, Tikamgarh, alcoholism), Ravindra Singh (student, poisoning suspected), Vikas Pandey (middle man, Allahabad, brain haemorrhage), Gyan Singh (Bhind, alcoholism), Vikash Singh Thakur (Banwani, illness), Vijay Patel (Rewa, unknown reason), Premlata Pandey (Rewa, cancer), Anant Ram Tagore (Morena, cancer) and Dr Rajendra Arya (Gwalior, died on 28 June due to liver infection). Barring Ravindra Singh who was a student, the rest were middle men. * Suicides (3): Three middle men Aditya Chaudhary, Bunty Sikarwar and Rinku Pramod Sharma have reportedly committed suicide. There have been several questions on the real reason of the deaths. Vijay Patel, a pharmacist in Shajapur jail, was arrested for his alleged involvement in the state’s milk federation and police constable recruitment examinations and was lodged in Bhopal Central Jail. Released on bail in April, he was found dead under suspicious conditions in a hotel room at Kanker in Chhattisgarh. His father, Chhotelal Singh Patel, is not ready to buy the ‘suicide theory’ of the police. “He was killed because he was supposed to reveal ‘big names’ involved in the scam,” Patel told the local media. Leader of Opposition in MP Assembly, Satyadev Katare questioned, “How is it possible that the 10 accused in the scam died in road accidents and police continue to remain clueless about the vehicles? Why are the accused committing suicide?” “Everyone from the cops in the SIT, who are also the beneficiaries, to investigators and the party men are hand-in-glove. We’ve demanded for a CBI inquiry. The STF not questioning middle-man Gulab Singh Kirar and Sudhir Badhoria, who are the relatives of MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar respectively raises serious doubts on the direction of the investigation. They have been named in the scam,” added Katare, who was a minister in the previous Congress government in MP. Meanwhile, the special investigating team (SIT) probing the scandal had recently submitted a list of 23 deceased to the Madhya Pradesh high court who had died an “unnatural death”.