Vyapam Scam: Death in a Dingy Kanker Lodge has Stench of Murder

Vijay Singh Patel died under mysterious circumstances. 2 well-placed officials stood to gain from his death. Vyapam?

The body of Vijay Singh Patel who died under mysterious circumstances being carried out. (Photo: The Quint)

Thirty five-year-old Vijay Singh Patel, a pharmacist with Shajapur jail in Madhya Pradesh, who died under mysterious circumstances in a shabby lodge in Kanker, Chhattisgarh, was closely associated with the private secretary of a former state minister Lakshmikant Sharma, now in jail for being a direct beneficiary of the multi-crore Vyapam scam that has scalded the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government.

The body of Vijay Singh Patel which was found in a dingy room of Bastar Lodge, said to be owned by a former BJP MLA. (Photo: The Quint)

With The Quint establishing in successive stories that a Vyapam scam kingpin Dr Jagdish Sagar (who is in jail) may have masterminded the murder of 19-year-old Namrata Damor of Indore, my investigation into Vijay’s death has thrown up leads that point to foul play. Two well-placed officials, one of them a former minister in the state government, would have stood to gain with Vijay’s elimination.

Just as in the case of Namrata, whose autopsy strongly indicated that she was murdered while the police concluded it was suicide, Vijay’s post-mortem report mentions that he died because of insecticide poisoning while the Kanker police maintained that his death was caused by a “sudden cardiac arrest.” When contacted over phone from Indore, Kanker police station officer-in-charge Deenbandhu Uikey claimed that the doctor who performed the autopsy on Vijay’s body declared “his death was natural.”

But Vijay’s younger brother Abhay challenged the police claim, saying that the post mortem report clearly said that the death was because of ingestion of a poisonous substance. “Neither any container nor even a pudiya was found in the room.”

The inquest or panchanama as it is called in these parts of Madhya Pradesh listed only his spare clothes lying by the bed of the lodge room and a few 10 rupee notes.

Police outside the room where Patel’s body was found. (Photo: The Quint)

Abhay’s claims are absolutely consistent with the post-mortem conducted by Dr D B Nag of the Kanker District Hospital on May 1, 2015. It says clearly: “Insecticidal poison suspected.”

He also recommended that the police carry out a viscera examination. When contacted over phone, Dr Nag said,

The body was in a state of putrefaction and it was unidentifiable. There were maggots on it and the stomach lining had perforation.
– Dr D B Nag, Kanker District Hospital

A copy of the autopsy report, however, is available with The Quint.

There are other inconsistencies in the police’s version of the circumstances in which Vijay’s body was found on the morning of April 29, 2015, in the dingy room of Bastar Lodge, said to be owned by a former BJP MLA.

According to photographic evidence available with The Quint, Vijay’s body was found lying on his back across two beds in a four-bedroom of the lodge. But Uikey told The Quint “it was a double-bed room.”

Police officers checking the room where pharmacist Vijay Patel died under mysterious circumstances. (Photo: The Quint)

While Abhay insisted that Vijay was carrying his mobile phone [phone] was the last known number he used) and laptop, the police denied that they found the two items in the room. “Even the bag that he was carrying his belongings in is missing,” Abhay said, adding that Vijay was incommunicado for 14 days before we learnt that he had died in the Kanker lodge.

On April 14, 2015, Vijay, who was in Charama in Kanker with his wife who worked as a school teacher there, received a summons from the Special task Force (STF) investigating the Vyapam scam for being examined for bribing some officials to get the job of a pharmacist at the Shajapur jail. Earlier, in October 2014, Vijay had been granted bail by a Jabbalpur court after being in jail on bribery charges. Since then he was jobless and was weighing the option of getting into some kind of business.

On April 16, he called me on my mobile phone to say that he would have to report to the STF in Bhopal the next day. That day he was at a station. I could hear the sound of passing trains in the background. Bhaiyya called me again early on April 17 morning, saying that he was about to reach Bhopal station and once the STF’s examination was over he would meet me. That was the last time i spoke with him. For several days his phone remained switched off and inquiries with the STF turned up nothing.
– Abhay, brother of the deceased

Fourteen days later Abhay received a phone call from the Kanker police informing him of Vijay’s death. Vijay, according to the police, had checked into Bastar Lodge on April 24 and had paid an advance of Rs 350 for the room. The lodge’s guest register has his name entered in it. When asked what was the daily room rent at Bastar Lodge, officer Uikey said, “Perhaps Rs 250” which by itself is on the higher side because typically dingy lodges in Chhattisgarh charge only for the bed which are usually very dirty.

For three days - between April 24 and 26 - Vijay visited a place called Bhanupratappur in Kanker, Uikey said. He returned to the lodge on April 26. The next evening, he informed the lodge staff that he would check-out on April 28 and take the train to Bhopal.

He told the lodge staff to wake him up early on April 28. But when he did not wake up that morning, the lodge staff found something was wrong and informed the police.
– Abhay, brother of the deceased

The police broke open the room door to find Vijay sprawled on the bed in only his underwear, quite dead.

The body of Vijay Patel was found by the police after they broke into his room at the lodge he was staying in. (Photo: The Quint)

There are a few unanswered questions that arise from Vijay’s mysterious death. Did he reach Bhopal on April 17 and meet STF officers at the appointed time? It could be that he did reach Bhopal that day but never reached the STF office. Was he accosted by someone? Why did he return to Kanker and check into Bastar Lodge when he could have easily reached Charama to be with his wife? Since he was to meet STF officers in Bhopal he should have been carrying documents related to his case. Why and where did they go missing? Remember, the police listed only his clothes during the inquest. How did his mobile phone and laptop go missing?

Police officers outside the room where Vijay Patel’s body was found. (Photo: The Quint)

More importantly, why did Vijay check into a four-bedroom when a single-bedroom would have sufficed?

This is a question I and others in the family continue to ask ourselves and anybody who is willing to listen to the story of Vijay’s murder.
– Abhay, brother of the deceased

Were there others who joined Vijay between April 17, the day he went incommunicado, and April 27, a day before he was to check out from the lodge?

Perhaps as coincidence, the very day Vijay checked into Bastar Lodge, a Vyapam scam accused, Vijay Kumar Tripathi, whose in-laws live in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, and was closely associated with O P Shukla, the private secretary to Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB or Vyapam in short in Hindi) minister Lakshmikant Sharma, was released on bail. Shukla, who Abhay claimed is from the same school, Navodaya Vidyalaya in Allahabad as his brother Vijay, continues to be in jail along with his former boss Lakshmikant Sharma.

“We do suspect Tripathi and Shukla for being mixed up in my brother’s death, but there is no direct evidence.” Abhay and a cousin brother of Vijay, Maharshi Singh, told The Quint.

Now, Vijay was as close to Tripathi as he was to Shukla who was also arrested by the STF for being a beneficiary as well as a conduit for large sums of money that a Vyapam scam mastermind Dr Sudhir Sharma that paid as kickbacks to Lakshmikant Sharma.

The Income Tax department has investigated the massive exchange of money between some of the scam accused and the former MPPEB minister. The Quint has in its possession an STF document that indicates that lakhs were paid to various senior functionaries and top bureaucrats in the state government by Dr Sharma who, along with others in MPPEB ran an elaborate machinery that accepted bribes by government job-seekers such as Vijay Patel. Did Shukla and Tripathi suspect Vijay to have spilled the beans to the STF and was therefore a target whose elimination would dilute the prosecution’s case against them?