New Delhi/Bhopal: The multi-crore Vyapam scam continues to get murkier by the day, with the body of 25-year-old trainee sub-inspector Anamika Sikarwar found in a lake adjacent to the Police Training Academy at Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar district headquarters on Monday.
While the Centre ruled out a CBI probe into the scam, as demanded by the Opposition, for the time being, the Congress continued to press for Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s immediate resignation to let an “impartial investigation” take place.
The Congress alleged that Mr Chouhan cannot “escape responsibility for 45 deaths” of people who had some connection with the case. Sikarwar was selected as a sub-inspector in an exam that was conducted through Vyapam, but the police said her selection had nothing to do with the Vyapam scam and she was not a suspected beneficiary. This is the third mysterious death linked to the Vyapam scam in the past 48 hours.
Read: Centre too says no to CBI probe
Mr Chouhan quickly denied that the incident was linked to the Vyapam probe. “It is a sad and unfortunate incident. But with all responsibility, I say that there is no connection of that unfortunate incident with Vyapam or its probe. And it is not fair to link all such unfortunate incidents with Vyapam,” he said.
The main whistleblower in the Vyapam case, Ashish Chaturvedi, claimed that there was a “grave threat” to his life and accused Mr Chouhan of being “directly involved” in the scam, a charge that was rubbished by the CM. The Opposition has, so far, linked nearly 45 deaths to the scam. One set of Excel sheets related to the scam that have remained controversial have the names of candidates, their roll numbers, and their references — ranging from “CM”, “CM’s residence”, “Uma Bharati” and “Governor”, among others.
