NEW DELHI: The death at a hotel here of the dean of a Jabalpur medical college, who was probing the Vyapam scam, remains a mystery for police as there are no visible external injuries on his body.
It appeared like a death due to alcohol or drug abuse as strips of anti-depression, blood pressure and diabetes tablets were recovered from Dr Arun Sharma’s hotel room. However, the investigators are also probing whether someone had injected any lethal substance to Sharma.
Though they haven’t found any documents related to the Vyapam scam from Sharma’s possession, the investigators are looking at all possible angles to the death.
“We are carefully investigating the matter. No foul play was observed as per prima facie evidence. A medical board was constituted to conduct a postmortem,” said Police Commissioner B S Bassi. The postmortem was carried out by a panel of five doctors at the Safdarjung Hospital on Monday. “Our crime team inspected the spot where the incident took place. So, no relevant physical evidence goes unnoticed. The CCTV footage was also recovered,” he said.
He also said a police team was in touch with Sharma’s family members. The sleuths are also trying to find out whom Sharma had reportedly given scam-related documents running into around 200 pages, and checking his call details records. A team from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) visited The Uppal hotel to recreate the sequence of the incident and collected evidence from the room.
62-year-old Sharma, who was helping the MP police probing the scam, was a “habitual drinker”, said a cop, quoting Sharma’s son, who also told police that his father had high blood pressure, high level of blood sugar and was on anti-depressants.
Sharma had booked the hotel suite online and asked for a pickup from the Indira Gandhi International Airport to the hotel. He landed at the airport at 2.10 pm and was picked up by a car sent by the hotel. He bought a whisky bottle on the way and reached the hotel at 3.55 pm. He came out of the room to have snacks and returned after half an hour.
He had told the staff to give him a wake-up call around 4.30 am on Sunday to catch an Agartala-bound flight. When no response came after repeated knocks, the staff used a duplicate key to open the door of his room, where he was found lying dead on his bed.