Graft getting murkier

Dead men tell no tales. Yet often, they sing. In chilling cadences and high notes, their deaths offer concerts on conspiracies, clouts and cover ups.

The death of Yogendra Singh Sachan, deputy chief medical officer (CMO) found hanging by a leather belt in a toilet of Lucknow’s district jail on June 22 this year, falls under this hoary category.

He was prime accused in the murder of two of his bosses, no less, chief medical officers, Vinod Arya and BP Singh, killed in October 2010 and April 2011 respectively.

The Sachan case heightens a dangerous old trend with new ramifications: the increasing involvement of top notch politicians in cases of rampant graft and loot of the exchequer, critical eyewitnesses supposed to have testified in courts of law against these heavyweights have been silenced most mysteriously.

The wider case in Sachan and many others figure is the rampant corruption in the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), a flagship government programme that saw Rs 1808.76 crores come into Uttar Pradesh’s coffers in the last financial year. It is also a case in point.

Much of that money is believed to have been withdrawn for equipment and supplies that never were purchased and for hiring of vehicles that did not exist.

As the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) looks to put together the puzzles of what the state’s opposition has decried as “daylight loot”, the name of at least one powerful ex-minister in the Mayawati government, Bubu Singh Kushwaha (minister for family welfare) has figured in the ongoing CBI probe.

When Sachan’s body was discovered, the state’s cabinet secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh told the media that a sharp blade, the alleged suicide weapon had also been recovered from the spot. (Incidentally both belts and blades are not permitted in jail premises).

The subsequent post-mortem report revealed nine cuts on Sachan’s wrist, neck, elbows and thigh, in addition to strangulation marks on the neck. It was clear that a doctor could not have chosen such a clumsy way of ending his life and would have known the easiest vein to slit.

The case was subsequently handed over to the CBI, a demand Sachan’s family had been making since the day he died.

Elder brother RK Sachan, also a doctor says, “My brother was innocent. He was removed to cover up the crimes of others. He was first killed and then his body dragged to the first floor and the incident made to look as suicide. The timing of his death, a day before he was to appear before a judicial magistrate is also suspect. The truth will come out.”

The medical fraternity in the state refuses to talk openly.

The chief medical superintendent of one Lucknow-based government hospital says, “Sachan took over from Arya as officiating CMO. How did he know that he would become CMO if Arya died? There are clearly big powers at work here. The health mission with its emphasis on asset creation is skewed and sick.”

As cases of political corruption spawn, the amounts involved get bigger and the collisions become murkier, the chilling trend of witnesses forced into silence is emerging, rather disturbingly.

Take A.M Sadiq Batcha (37), a close associate of former disgraced telecom minister A Raja, prime accused in the 2G scam, who was found hanging in the bedroom of his plush south Chennai home by his wife Rekha Banu in the third week of March this year.

Batcha was managing director of, Green House Promoters, one of the companies alleged to be the conduits for laundering kickbacks gained from the improper sale of 2G airwaves by Raja when he was telecom minister in 2008. Green House was promoted only months after Raja took the telecom reigns.

Batcha’s life was a textbook case of how a man with modest ambitions grew too big too fast – and ended rather abruptly.

A low-level realtor from Permabalur who graduated to property business after years of selling mattresses and clothes on cycle, he is believed to have introduced Shahid Balwa, the other main accused in the scam to Raja.

Detractors of the DMK, Raja’s much- criticised political party, have been quick to point out that Batcha had been bumped off because he knew too much, even as the police brandied a suicide note that said that Batcha had been embarrassed by the CBI raids of his office and home in connection with the Supreme Court-monitored 2G investigations and humiliated at the media uproar it had caused.

Interestingly, the note found in Batcha’s diary also described Raja as a “good man” who did not deserve the “unfortunate fate” that had befallen him.

There was speculation that Batcha had been contemplating turning approver in the case which would have ensured that he got let off with relatively lighter punishment in return for deposing against key players in the scam.

Equally interestingly and scarily coincidental, Batcha’s alleged suicide happened the day he was to fly to Delhi for further questioning in the case, a programme which the CBI subsequently denied.

Instead, a bland official release put out by the CBI stated, “There has been no pressure from CBI on Batcha. He was cooperating with CBI. The development is unexpected but it will not affect the investigation in the ongoing 2G spectrum scam as all the evidence has already been recorded.”

Raising the spectre of more unnatural deaths in the course of the investigation, political analyst Cho Ramaswamy has commented, “It could very well be a murder. Perhaps, the man knew too much…. Why should it happen to him? I do not believe this.”

Avers Savithri Kannan, Chennai-based activist, “The sudden demise of Sadiq Batcha created a big shock in the political circles of Tamil Nadu during the assembly elections. Though there was a suicide note allegedly written by Batcha, his death is registered in the people’s mind only as murder. His death is an example of how ordinary persons indulging in illegal activities on behalf of powerful persons will always be made scapegoats.” Fair point, after all why would a healthy billionaire decide to end his life one fine morning?

To make it even more sinister, V Dekal the government doctor who conducted the postmortem on Batcha’s body now says, “We did not know the body was of Batcha.”

Dekal incidentally submitted his resignation soon after and wanted to contest the elections, but was not relieved till the elections were over. Could it be then that he had something to say that would have added to the suspicion around Batcha’s death? Like Sachan, Batcha is only an addition to the long list of those who conveniently die when in the midst of a political scandal.

Nothing illustrates this trend better than a headcount of key witnesses who’ve either “committed suicide” or “gone missing” in the legendary Bihar fodder scam, a massive con that saw over Rs 950 crore plus being swindled out of the state treasury for payments made for fodder, medicines and equipment for livestock that existed only on paper.

A mammoth scandal that began in the 1970s and concluded in the mid 1990s when it was finally exposed by the then Comptroller and Auditor General T.N Chaturvedi in 1996, the case is remarkable in that it cut across the political spectrum and had spawned a dedicated mafia.

Of the two dozen witnesses (including two ministers and five directors of the animal husbandry department) who have died in the course of the investigation, none have merited a case of mysterious death registered either with the CBI or in any police station. There have also not been any efforts to trace Mukul Kishore Kapoor, private secretary to then Bihar chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, who disappeared a decade ago, never to surface again.

The scam erupted during Laloo Yadav’s tenure as head of the state government and the former chief minister himself is one of the principal accused.

The enormity of the fodder scandal can be ascertained by the fact that a quick read through of the prime accused is yet to be concluded!
The awesome list of 55 includes Laloo Prasad Yadav, Jagannath Misra (three stints as Bihar chief minister between 1975 and 1990), two members of Yadav’s cabinet Bhola Ram Toofani (minister, animal husbandry) and Vidya Sagar Nishad, Chandradeo Prasad Verma (former Union minister of state for rural areas and employment), three MLAs RK Rana (Janata Dal), Jagdish Sharma (Congress) Dhruv Bhagat (BJP), IAS officers including Mahesh Prasad, science and technology secretary; K. Arumugam, labour secretary; Beck Julius, animal husbandry department (AHD) secretary; Phoolchand Singh, former finance secretary, state government official Ramraj Ram who had served as AHD director and Shyam Bihari Sinha retired regional joint director AHD.

Toofani, a freedom fighter who had served time in the Bhagalpur central jail, said to be in deep shock at his role in the scam, died in February 2000, from a heart attack. According to available records, his body bore marks of “self inflicted stab inquiries”. His family says he was innocent and “used to weep all day and spend sleepless nights” after the scam broke.

Shashi Kala, Toofani’s daughter and principal of an inter college in east Champaran remembers, “When my father was falsely accused, he started to remain depressed and preferred to keep aloof. He would tell the CBI teams interrogating him to shoot him instead.

“He would get calls from high profile people like Laloo Yadav and his associates. No one knows what transpired. As time went by, he stopped eating. He was always shadowed, either by CBI or by others at the behest of fodder accused. We began to notice behavioural changes, for instance he would spend an inordinate amount of time in the bathroom. Ultimately we had to ensure that he did not lock the door from inside. In 1999, he attempted suicide but we managed to save his life by taking him in the nick of time to the Patna Medical College Hospital. Finally in 2000 he passed away, broken and harassed.”

The list of fodder scam witnesses whose death remains unexplained would be ideal writing material for Agatha Christie. Take a look: Witness A Verma died in shock; SB Sinha, the supposed mastermind of the scam died in judicial custody while Chandra Bhushan Dubey, piggery development officer posted in Ranchi, alleged prime adviser to Sinha, succumbed to torture in police custody.

In the interim, many treasury officials have also passed away. No surprise this because treasuries from which fraudulent withdrawals had been made lie at the centre of the wide-ranging investigations. Resultantly, Ashok Tuddu, Braj Mohan Sinha, RK Mistri and TN Pathak of the Dumka treasury, Ram Deo Prasad officer of the Ranchi treasury, Diwakar Sharma, Nawal Kishore Prasad and Chotte Ram who worked at the Hazaribagh treasury and D Kujur of the Gumala treasury, all died under unexplained circumstances during the investigation.

Other macabre disappearances include animal husbandry department (AHD) assistant director Lala V Mohan, run over by a truck in Jamshedpur in November 1996, Manu Munda, driver of one of the accused (Birsa Oraon) abducted and killed in Patna in December 1996, JN Tiwari, AHD employee also run over by a truck in Daltonganj in December of the same year, Harish Khadelwal, AHD supplier whose headless body was found near a Dhanbad rail track in May 1997, Ram Raj Singh, doctor in the AHD department who was mowed down by a speeding truck in Patna in May 1997, Vivekanand Sharma, petitioner in the scam, shot in Ranchi in June 1998 and Uma Shankar Prasad, another AHD employee who was run over by a truck in Ranchi in July 1998. No surprise then that virtually there are no eyewitnesses in the fodder scam left anymore to testify.

Umesh Kumar Singh, retired section officer of Bihar’s Vigilance Department, who was in jail for six months before being given a clean chit by the CBI says, “The fodder scam was an all party affair. Everyone dipped into the loot. Yet many who were directly involved in the withdrawals got away because many of the accused and prime witnesses were either killed or tortured in such a brutal way that they lost their lives.”

Singh has chilling memories of his days in CBI custody. “In remand there were constant threats to turn government approver or toe a particular line before the courts. I certainly saw one critical fodder witness being given the third degree by the CBI. I was told you will be killed. I asked the CBI who would do it, you or other bigwigs in the fodder scam? They said follow our instructions and don’t ask too many questions or else you would end up in the gutter”, he says.

The major flaw in the country’s criminal justice system that has permitted such mockery of justice is the absence of a cohesive witness protection programme.

Just the last decade has yielded numerous examples of key witnesses turning up dead cold at the height of an investigation. The list remains long and truly pan-Indian. Consider some more convenient deaths, all of whom perished in circumstances that went on to favour key accused in various high-profile criminal cases. Not unnaturally, the most open secret was that they were done away with the intention of saving the skins and secrets of the powerful.

• V Sasindhran (corruption in the state-run Malabar cements, Kerala, February 2011)

• Ashutosh Asthana (the Rs 6.5 crore Ghaziabad PF scam, 2009)

• Arindam Manna (Rizwanur suicide case, 2009)

• Tulsiram Prajapati (Sohrabuddin encounter, 2005 in Gujarat)

• Ram Singh Maurya (BJP MLA Krishnanand Rai murder, 2005, Uttar Pradesh)

• Keki Balsara (Gulshan Kumar murder case, 2001).

Billionaire Hasan Ali charged for money laundering by the enforcement directorate in Hawala cases has claimed his life is in danger.

Offers M Radhakrishnan, a senior advocate from Chennai, “In cases such as that of Sadiq Batcha, there may be involvement of the state machinery. In cases which are detrimental to the state, witnesses may be disturbed or even killed. In cases of mass murder like that of Best Bakery, a large number of witnesses turned hostile, only because we do not have a witness protection programme. In the United States, Canada and South Africa where such programmes are in place, witnesses are given new residences, jobs, even a new name and ID for protection.

In cases like the 2G scam where political involvement is manifest and in which the witness is also an accomplice in the crime, arrest should be made immediately with the purpose of providing him protection.

“If Batcha had been arrested, he might be safe, even if his human rights would have been somewhat violated.” Senior criminal lawyer Indira Singh in Lucknow adds, “Cases of political corruption take very long to prosecute because of the tedious investigation process that covers huge spans of time and numerous players. To bring these to fruitful completion is impossible without a witness protection programme that offers buffers against threats and inducements.”

And there are many. Clearly then, till such a programme is put in place the dead will continue to raise a stink in the world of the living.