Medical college dean found dead in Hotel

New Delhi: The Vyapam scam claimed another victim on Sunday with Arun Sharma, Dean of the Jabalpur-based Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Medical College, being found dead in a Delhi hotel. He was said to be compiling a list of students who gained admission illegally.

Notwithstanding pressure over the growing number of unexplained deaths of accused persons and witnesses, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan insisted on Sunday that he could not recommend a CBI inquiry into the case.

“My government is not above the judiciary. When the High Court has refused a CBI inquiry, how can we order it?” the Chief Minister said.

Mr. Chouhan said a special investigation team was probing the scam under the supervision of the Madhya Pradesh High Court and ordering an investigation by any other agency was the prerogative of the court.

He insisted that no other case in the country had been investigated as closely as Vyapam had been till date.

“The moment the HC decided to monitor it, that very day the State government’s role ended in the scam. When the probe is being carried out under court monitoring, the State government cannot be above the court or the Supreme Court,” he said.

In the latest deaths associated with the scam, Akshay Singh, a TV reporter from Delhi,



had a sudden heart attack on Saturday while reporting on the scam. He had just concluded an interview with the parents of one of the accused who died in suspicious circumstances in 2012.

On Sunday morning, Dr. Arun Sharma was found dead in Uppal Hotel in Delhi. His death comes exactly a year after his predecessor, D.K. Sakalley, died of burns at home. Both were said to be compiling a list of students who had gained admission illegally.

The police said that there were no visible injuries on Dr. Sharma’s body and that prima facie it appeared to be a natural death. In Bhopal, the speculation was that it was a case of suicide.

Doctors here said a three-member board has been constituted for Sharma's post-mortem examination — medical examiners from Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Maulana Azad Medical College and Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital or Lady Hardinge Medical College and Hospital. The procedure, scheduled for Monday morning, will be recorded, said a doctor. Incidentally, the burnt body of another dean of the same college, Dr D K Sakalle, who was looking into the Vyapam scam, had been found in his home last year.

Calling the spate of deaths “extremely intriguing and deeply suspicious”, the Congress on Sunday demanded a Supreme Court-monitored CBI probe into the matter.