Rinku Khanuja, an automobile businessman, whose name had surfaced as one of the suspects in the “sex CD” case allegedly involving a Chhattisgarh Minister was found dead under mysterious circumstances in his office at Raipur on Tuesday.
Rinku Khanuja was being questioned by the CBI in connection with the case.
The businessman's body was found hanging at the first floor of his office located at Gowardhan Chowk in the city. The deceased, according to his family members, had left home on Monday morning telling them that the CBI had summoned him for interrogation.
When Rinku didn’t return home in the night, his younger brother went to search for him. When he reached his office, he found that the shutter was locked from inside.
On peeping inside through window, he found that his brother was hanging from the ceiling. Immediately, the police was called which after breaking the lock, entered the office and recovered Rinku’s body.
Superintendent of Police (SP), Raipur Ambreesh Mishra informed The Pioneer that the police found body of the deceased hanging from the ceiling in his Rajendra Nagar based office and the body was sent for post mortem. "We are at present looking at various angles of the case but prima facie, the case appears to be of suicide as the shutter was locked from inside", he said.
Regarding allegations of family members of the deceased of physical and mental torture, the SP denied saying he had spoken to the doctors who examined the body and no injury mark was found on the body.
Notably, in October last year BJP leader Prakash Bajaj had alleged that he was being harassed over phone by journalist Vinod Verma who told him that he had a CD of his boss.
A police team had been sent to Delhi and Verma was arrested from his Ghaziabad residence on October 27, 2017 and police had then claimed to have seized 500 CDs and pen drives.
After Verma was arrested, the sex CD allegedly involving State PWD Minister Rajesh Munat surfaced in Raipur.
Munat had then lodged a police complaint against Chhattisgarh Pradesh Congress Committee (CGPCC) Chief Bhupesh Baghel and Vinod Verma at the Civil lines police station in Raipur for allegedly tarnishing his image through the "fake CD".
The Chhattisgarh Government had also then recommended a CBI probe into the case. later, Vinod Verma, Bhupesh Baghel and some other persons were questioned by the CBI in the case.
Meanwhile, State Congress Spokesperson Shailesh Nitin Trivedi demanded that the further investigation in CD case should be conducted under the monitoring of a Supreme Court Judge as it involved names of political leaders. A high-level probe is a must in this case, he said.