Vyapam scam: Is CBI inching towards declaring there was no scam at all?

Over two years after the Supreme Court ordered Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the probe in the sensational Vyapam scam, it appears that the agency is all set to prove that it was a futile exercise.

Official word from the CBI is yet to come out but media reports citing CBI sources had said over a year ago that the agency has not found any "political conspiracy" in the scam.

Also read: Vyapam: Why whistle-blowers are unhappy with CBI probe so far

Now, another set of media reports, again citing unnamed sources in the CBI, are claiming that the death toll in the scam went up because Madhya Pradesh police had mistakenly included the names of dead persons as accused in its FIRs.

Looking at both sets of reports makes one reach only one conclusion - neither was there any “political conspiracy” in the scam, nor were any murders committed.

It looks like there is a concerted effort to somehow create an impression that there was no scam at all and it was all just a case of misunderstanding and misreporting. It is yet to be known if the source of this mischief is the CBI because the agency has not released any official statement confirming or denying both sets of media reports.

However, the truth is far removed from these reports. The allegations against the accused are clear-cut and so are the reports about the deaths. As Catch has extensively reported earlier, at least 42 people connected with the scam had died by the time CBI took over. Many of these people died under mysterious circumstances.

From the outset, CBI was probing only 23 deaths because that was the Special Investigation Team's original estimate. About 20 other deaths were not taken up for investigation. However, even out of these 23, many were suspicious cases.

Like the case of the former dean of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College of Jabalpur, Dr DK Sakalley, who was found charred to death at his residence in July 2014. Sakalley was the dean when several MBBS students involved in the Vyapam scam were expelled for having cleared the pre-medical test using unfair means.

Namrata Damore, a student of 2011-batch MGM Medical College, Indore was found dead on the railway tracks in January 2012 when she was travelling from Indore to Bilaspur. She had allegedly secured admission through fraudulent means.

Pharmacist Vijay Patel, an accused in three different Vyapam cases, was found dead in a lodge in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, when he had informed his lawyer that he will meet him in Bhopal that day.

Anuj Uike, Anshul Sachan and Shyam Veer Yadav of Mandla, Hoshangabad and Gwalior respectively, all three accused in the scam, died in the same road accident in Raisen, 50 kilometres from Bhopal, on 14 June 2010.

Here's a reckoner of some of the deaths so far. They show the name of the person, where they came from, the date they died and the cause of death:

• Anand Singh Yadav, Fatehpur, 9.10.2013, road accident
• Arvind Shakya, Gwalior, 28.11.2012, road accident
• Dinesh Jatav, Murena, 14.2.2014, road accident
• Kuldeep Maravi, 12.5.2013, road accident 
• Tarun Machhaar, Ratlam, 15.9.2013, road accident
• Devendra Nagar, Bhind, 26.12.2013, road accident
• Deepak Jain, Shivpuri, 1.2.2014, road accident
• Ashutosh Tiwari, Gwalior, 10.8.2013, excessive alcohol
• Gyan Singh, Bhind, 20.6.2010, excessive alcohol
• Vikas Singh, Barwani, 21.11.2009, excessive alcohol
• Aditya Chowdhary, Sagar, 25.10.2012, suicide by hanging
• Pramod Sharma, Murena, 21.4.2013, suicide by hanging
• Ravindra Pratap Singh, Singrauli, 15.6.2014, consumed poison
• Shailesh Yadav, Lucknow, 2015, brain haemorrhage
• Vikas Pandey, Allahabad, 20.4.2014, brain haemorrhage
• Narendra Rajput, Mahoba, 13.4.2014, cause of death unknown
• Bunty Sikarwar, Gwalior, 21.1.2014, cause of death unknown 
• Vijay Singh Patel, Bhopal, 28.4.2015, cause of death unknown

The relatives of many of these had claimed that they suspected mischief behind these deaths and wanted them probed.

Also read: 42 Vyapam-related deaths: the families speak out

A high-profile death related to the scam was that of Shailesh Yadav, son of Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav, an accused in the scam. Shailesh was found dead under mysterious circumstances at his residence in Lucknow on 26 March 2015. 

The Governor had already had a case registered against him by then and the Special Task Force was looking for his son as well. His family refused a post-mortem, thereby blocking the reason behind Shailesh's death from coming out.

Is the CBI saying that all of these deaths were either natural or happened much before the scam broke out? That's an unbelievable proposition by all accounts.

Edited by Jhinuk Sen