The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which is going to file its status report on the Vyapam scam in the Supreme Court next week, is likely to state that it has found no foul play in the 24 Vyapam related deaths including that of journalist Akshay Singh. The CBI is also likely to state that there is no foul play in the death of Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav’s son Shailesh Yadav—who was found dead at his house in Lucknow in March 2015.
“Most of the deaths, including that of Shailesh Yadav, were because of natural causes like cardiac arrest and self inflicted causes (suicide). The closure report into the investigations related to the death of at least 12 people will be filed next week. Out of the other 12 deaths, including that of journalist Akshay Singh, is all but over. In these cases also, the cause of death has been found to be natural. Only two cases (Deepak Jain who died in a road accident in Gwalior) and Namrata Damor (whose body was found on a railway track in Ujjain in 2012) are still being investigated as suspicious,” an agency official familiar with the development said.
Akshay Sinngh, a reporter with the Hindi news channel Aaj Tak, had died suddenly on 5 July 2015, while reporting on Vyapam from Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh.
The 38-year-old Singh had collapsed after complaining of uneasiness while on duty. Singh, when he collapsed, was talking to the father of Namrata Damor, a student of the Government Medical College, Indore, whose body was found under mysterious circumstances near a railway track in Ujjain in 2012.
It was the death of Singh, which had forced a reluctant Madhya Pradesh government to give the case to CBI on 8 July 2015.
The CBI had deputed one joint director, two DIGs, six SPs and at least 100 investigators to investigate the scam. However, in the last one year, almost all the high profile accused in the case, including former minister and BJP leader Laxmikand Sharma, OSD to Governor Dhanraj Yadav, Congress leader Sanjeev Saxena, one of the main accused Jagdish Sagar and at least six others had come out from prison on bail as CBI was not able to prove their complicity in the scam.
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