34 deaths in Vyapam scam, says Home Ministry

NEW DELHI: The Home Ministry has told Parliament that 34 persons connected to the Vyapam issue have died between 2007 and 2015, citing information furnished by the Madhya Pradesh Government.

"Out of these, 11 died due to accidents, 15 due to health problems, 5 committed suicide, two drowned and the cause of death of one could not be ascertained," the Minister of State for Home, Haribhai Parathibhai Chaudhary has told Parliament in a written answer. This was in response to a question asked by CPI (M) MP TK Rangarajan regarding unnatural deaths of witnesses and accused persons since the Vyapan scam had come to light.

The Vyapam scam has been shifted for probe to the CBI after Supreme Court's directions. The CBI has so far registered 42 cases since taking over the probe last month besides instituting 11 preliminary enquiries (PE) into 19 deaths allegedly linked to the scam, including cases of deceased Anand Singh, Ashutosh Tiwari, Gyan Singh, Anantram Tagore, Ravendra Prakash Singh, Premlata Pandey, Vikas Pandey, Rajendra Arya and Sanjay Kumar Yadav. CBI has filed a murder case in the mysterious death of Namrata Damor, an MBBS student whose body was found near a railway track in Ujjain in 2012. The CBI has also filed a PE into the death of journalist Akshay Singh.