Adding another twist to the Vyapam scandal and further raising the number of deaths related to the case, Dr Arun Sharma, 64, the Dean of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Medical College in Jabalpur was on Sunday found dead in a hotel room in the national Capital. His body was found at Uppal Hotel near the Indira Gandhi International Airport. He was on his way to Tripura as a member of an inspection team of the Medical Council of India.
Dr Sharma’s death comes to light barely a day after an investigative journalist with a leading Delhi-based news channel, who was following the trail of the Vyapam case, died under mysterious circumstances. In a new twist, Congress leader Digvijay Singh on Sunday claimed that Netaji Subhash Chandra Medical College Dean Dr Arun Sharma had given 200 pages of documents related to the Vyapam scam to the Special Task Force (STF) probing the case just two days ago.
According to the Delhi Police, Dr Sharma’s body was found at Uppal Hotel near the Indira Gandhi International Airport. He was found by the hotel staff that opened the room using a duplicate key after Sharma did not answer repeated knocks on the door. “We have contacted his son. He said his father was a sugar patient. The family is on its way to Delhi,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police RA Sanjeev.
The officer said the victim checked into Uppal Hotel on Saturday evening and wanted to be woken up on Sunday morning. When he did not respond to the wake-up calls, the hotel staff suspected something was wrong and called the police.“The door to his suite was broken into in the presence of police. The Dean was found on his bed,” the officer said. “Whisky and some medicines were found near his bed. Nothing had been visibly disturbed in the room, and no external injuries were seen on his body,” he added.
The body has been sent for autopsy. “We will wait for the autopsy report before we can say what caused his death,” said Sanjeev.Asked about reported links of Sharma with Vyapam scam, Joint Commissioner of Police (South West) Dipender Pathak said that police are investigating all the angles in the case.
Sharma was reportedly assisting the Special Task Force probing the recruitment scam in the Madhya Pradesh Vyavsayik Pareeksha Mandal (Vyapam) by providing documents on fake medical entrance examinees in the State-run college, police said. He was on his way to Tripura as a member of an inspection team of the Medical Council of India.
Incidentally, Sharma was the second Dean of the medical college to have died under mysterious circumstances in the last one year. DK Sakalle, who was inquiring into admissions of candidates for whom proxies had allegedly appeared in the Pre-Medical Test, had been found burnt at his residence.Indian Medical Association (IMA) Jabalpur district president Sudhir Tiwari expressed shock at the death and said that he was close to Dr Sakalle. Tiwari claimed Sharma had wept at the funeral pyre of Sakalle, claiming the latter had not committed suicide, as concluded by police after investigation.“I suspect that Sharma too might have been killed,” Tiwari said adding that he had learnt two days back that the dean had submitted a report relating to the Vyapam scam to the Special Task Force (STF) probing it.
Meanwhile, reacting to Sharma’s death, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh, who has petitioned the Supreme Court seeking a CBI probe into the scam, tweeted, “Dr Arun Sharma Dean of Jabalpur Medical College found dead in a Delhi Hotel. His father NK Sharma was a Minister, MP and MPCC president.”
