Police have ordered a review of the suspicious death of MBBS student Namrata Damor. Her body was found near railway tracks in the Ujjain district in 2012 after her name figured in the infamous >Vyapam scam of Madhya Pradesh.
Namrata’s case has come back in focus after the >sudden death of TV journalist Akshay Singh in Jhabua district’s Meghnagar town recently after he interviewed Namrata’s father.
“There must be a CBI probe. It is not a coincidence that all the accused are dying of one ailment or another. There is something more to it.” - Prashant Pandey, forensic expert and one of the whistle-blowers who exposed the scam
Ujjain District’s Superintendent of Police Manohar Singh Varma said, “We have ordered a review of the death of Namrata Damor. Sub Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP), Tarana, R K Sharma will reopen the case.”
Namrata’s body was found under mysterious conditions near the railway tracks on January 7, 2012.
Earlier, police had registered a “murder” case in this regard and later termed the incident as an “accident” and closed the case, a police official said.
Namrata was studying at the Government MGM Medical College in Indore and it was suspected that she took admission with the help of the racket involved in the high-profile Vyapam scam that is said to have claimed 45 lives.
Buckling under pressure, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had on Tuesday made a U-turn and decided to seek a CBI investigation into the murky Vyapam scam on a day the Supreme Court agreed to hear petitions in this regard.
Following Chouhan’s announcement at a press conference, the state government moved the Madhya Pradesh High Court seeking its direction for institution of a CBI probe into the massive admission and recruitment scam.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the plea of Congress leader Digvijay Singh and three whistle-blowers seeking an apex court-monitored CBI probe into the scam.
The Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) scam, also known as the Vyapam scam, is a massive admission and recruitment racket involving several bureaucrats and politicians.
Here are the top developments:
| 1 | Police ordered a review of the suspicious death of MBBS student Namrata Damor. Her body was found near railway tracks in the Ujjain district in 2012 after her name figured in the scam. Earlier, police had registered a “murder” case in this regard and later termed the incident as an “accident” and closed the case. |
| 2 | Buckling under pressure, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan made a U-turn and decided to seek a CBI investigation into the case. >Read more |
| 3 | Supreme Court agreed to hear a petition seeking removal of Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav over his alleged involvement in the scam. >Read more |
| 4 | The Congress and Aam Aadmi Party demanded a SC-monitored probe in to the case following the spate of deaths. >Read more |
| 5 | Adding to the string of deaths, the body of trainee sub-inspector Anamika Sikarwar was found in a lake adjacent to the Police Training Academy at Sagar district headquarters in Madhya Pradesh. The Chief Minister quickly denied that the incident was linked to the Vyapam probe. |
| 6 | Whistleblower Ashish Chaturvedi, 26, claimed that there was a grave threat to his life and accused Mr.Chouhan of being “directly involved” in the scam, a charge rubbished by the CM. |
| 7 | It came after the unexplained death of journalist Akshay Singh who was covering the scam in Jhabua while Jabalpur Medical College Dean Arun Sharma, probing fake examinees, was found dead under mysterious circumstances in a hotel at Dwarka in south-west Delhi. Police on Monday said no foul play was suspected in the death of Sharma . >Read more |
| 8 | Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the government cannot direct a High Court or Supreme Court to order a CBI probe into the scam. >Read more |
| 9 | Two senior officers of the Special Task Force (STF) investigating the MPPEB scam claimed to have received threats allegedly from some influential people involved in the racket. >Read more |
| 10 | The scam involves massive irregularities and corruption in the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) or MP Vyavsayik Pareeksha Mandal, abbreviated in Hindi as Vyapam. It has been alleged — by the Congress as well as several social activists — that the corrupt officials at the board took money to compromise the examination and recruitment for several professional course including Pre-Engineering, Pre-Medical, MCA, Teaching etc. The current accusations mostly involve teaching recruitments. >Read more |
