Witness in 2G case goes missing

The important witness in the 2G case, K Prabhakaran, , goes missing before the CBI could question him.

August 17, 2016 07:29 pm | Updated October 18, 2016 02:12 pm IST - New Delhi

A file picture of A. Raja's close aide, Sadiq Batcha.

A file picture of A. Raja's close aide, Sadiq Batcha.

The Central Bureau of Investigation has launched a hunt for the man who claimed that Sadiq Batcha, a close aide of former Union Telecom Minister A. Raja and a witness in the 2G Spectrum case, was murdered.

On May 17, Prabhakaran held a press conference in Tiruchi claiming that he was involved in the case. He alleged that a senior police officer in Tamil Nadu and one relative of a prominent politician were involved in Batcha’s murder.

However, CBI sources said, forensic experts of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences had not found any evidence substantiating the murder hypothesis.

“The agency has to record Prabhakaran’s statement. However, after the press conference, he has gone missing. His family members claim that they do not know his whereabouts. We are told that the State police are also looking for him. However, some local officers have termed Prabhakaran mentally unstable,” said a CBI official.

Though Prabhakaran claimed that Batcha was murdered, he had no evidence to support the allegation. He also claimed that he had sent a petition to the Chief Minister’s cell submitting that he was willing to face investigations in connection with the case.

Batcha was found hanging under mysterious circumstances in his house at Teynampet in Chennai by his wife and driver in March 2011. He was earlier questioned by the CBI on multiple occasions on the suspicion that his company had been used to route the alleged bribes in the 2G spectrum allocations scam.

Batcha had purportedly left a suicide note saying he was embarrassed by the searches conducted of various investigating agencies and the extensive media coverage. Based on the scientific findings, the CBI had concluded that the note was written by him.

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