40-member CBI team in MP for Vyapam probe

Bhopal: The CBI on Monday took over the probe in the Vyapam scam, the massive admission and recruitment scandal, which has rocked Madhya Pradesh and dented the credibility of the state’s BJP government.

 

Getting down to business, a CBI team led by a Joint Director-level officer from the agency’s headquarters in Delhi began preliminary consultations with MP police’s Special Task Force (STF), which hitherto investigated the numerous cases related to the scam. Sources in the premier probe agency said it would make an assessment of the enormity of the scam before launching fresh investigation.

 

The Special Task Force  was probing the cases under day-to-day monitoring by the MP High Court-appointed Special Investigating Team before CBI was asked to step in following a huge public and political outcry over a number of deaths of people linked to the scam, some of them unexplained.

 

Congress, which led the opposition attack on the state’s BJP government led by three-term Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, has claimed 49 people associated with Vyapam in some way have died under mysterious circumstances, though official figure stands at 25.

 

The 40-member CBI contingent headed by Joint Director R.P. Agarwal held discussions with Sudhir Sahi, head of the STF. The Special Task Force under Sahi has been probing the case since August 2013. In November last year, the Madhya Pradesh High Court constituted a SIT under the chairmanship of former High Court judge Chandresh Bhushan to supervise the investigation.

 

CBI director Anil Sinha, sources said, was himself monitoring the developments in the case with assistance from two Additional Directors R.K. Dutta and Y.C. Modi.