The Mahajan mysteries

As the police stick to their version of the gory sequence of events, conspiracy theories are filling the credibility gap

By our  special correspondent

Till the television channels burst the bombshell, June 1 seemed a day like any other. But late that night the channels reported that Rahul, son of the murdered BJP leader, Pramod Mahajan, was fighting for his life and his secretary, Bibek Moitra, was brought dead to Delhi’s Apollo Hospital. Did this seem like a death pact gone awry or a murder to control elder Mahajan’s putative fortunes or some escapade of a similar nature?

The possibility of foul play was heightened by the fact that Pramod Mahajan  had been slain by his own brother and rumours that there was an attempt to retrieve his considerable funds. The common belief was that Moitra was silenced due to these reasons. What about young Mahajan? He was also supposed to die, but he managed to survive due to prompt medical help, so went the argument.

More than a month after the incident took place, attributed to a drug overdose, many of the questions pertaining to Mahajan’s murder and the death of his secretary have gone unanswered. There are yawning gaps in the stories sold to the media and to the questioning public as to what happened on that fateful night. Hardnews tried to reconstruct the happenings and came back puzzled by the gaps in the probe. What it also discovered was the refusal on the part of the police to countenance any point of view other than their version that Rahul and Bibek sniffed coke and choked. Contrary evidence, including that of the Central Forensic and Scientific Laboratory (CFSL) that the two were using coke even before the young Kashmiri, Sahil Zaroo, procured some for them later in the night, was also ignored.

Besides, there is another aspect that seems to have been ignored—coke seldom kills as fast as Moitra had died.  There is also no explanation as to what Rahul and Moitra were doing before Zaroo turned up. There are suggestions that four very influential people visited Rahul that evening. Evidence: there were nine champagne glasses kept on the table. Quite clearly, bottles of champagne were being popped for some celebration. Question: what was the celebration all about? Was it just the promise of getting a position in the BJP youth wing or was it more? Political grapevine hints at some major land deal in Uttar Pradesh involving one of the unknown visitors.

Also the sedulous doctoring of the relevant medical reports by Apollo Hospital smacks of the kind of cover-up normally associated with assassinations. However, it is not only Apollo Hospital that has to answer questions. Other developments at Mahajan’s Safdarjung Road residence and critical decisions taken there are shrouded in mystery. Why were Moitra and Rahul not taken to the nearby All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) or Safdarjung Hospital? Both these facilities are barely five minutes away from the Mahajan residence. Also, why was Moitra taken to the hospital two hours after he had lost his consciousness? Was Rahul awake during this time or not? What was going on between 12.30 and 2.30 am? Was someone supervising the cleaning up of the house and removal of the evidence? Was the delay because evidence was being cleaned up, hospitals lined up, alibis and story lines rehearsed many times and so on? The script to handle the media was also worked out. Some PR agencies discretely told news channels that it was a case of drug abuse and nothing else. Does that suggest a mastermind at work who did not want the police to follow the trail of a murder? Quite clearly, there was some one who did not want the young man to be interrogated by the police till he was adequately briefed on what he had to say. Was this the reason that the unfortunate duo were not taken to a government hospital where such machinations are more difficult.

The Apollo Hospital chief, Dr Pratap Reddy, is also a member of the UP Development Council, which is headed by Amar Singh. Interestingly, Singh was one of the first visitors to the Apollo Hospital to check out on the health of Rahul. It has now been proved that the bills for the treatment were picked up by the administrator of the hospital—a woman called Raji.

Amusingly, three lawyers were quickly shuffled to articulate Rahul’s defence when he was remanded to judicial custody. There are some raised eyebrows in legal circles as to why this was done. There are indeed wheels within wheels in the Rahul saga. Will the truth ever come out?