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.