Gujarat’s VAT ‘whistleblower’ got his dying declaration videotaped

But the local police have yet to interrogate anyone that the inspector had named. It has also not examined the video.

Jadeja,incidentally,had earlier submitted a letter to the police around three months ago,detailing how he was being hounded and threatened after he exposed the scam. But the police claim they are still trying to retrieve the letter from their files.

Junagadh SP Subhash Trivedi confirmed that Jadeja did submit a statement. He said he has handed it to the investigating officer.

Lakhdhrisinh,Keshubha’s nephew,said that his uncle had personally gone and submitted the letter to the SP’s office at around 8 am on October 8,barely an hour before he consumed poison. Jadeja breathed his last at a hospital in Rajkot on October 19.

In the video,Jadeja has accused three senior officials in his department of threatening to finish him off after he exposed the scam: “We will stain your white clothes. You will no longer be able to climb up the stairs to your office. Your career will be ruined.” Jadeja named a deputy commissioner,an assistant commissioner and an inspector as those who threatened him.

“I have been working for 33 years. I had never been issued a memo. My confidential report has always been good,” Jadeja says in the video.

Then he goes on to detail how he was under tremendous pressure,ever since he detected the scam involving bogus bills and tax evasion totalling over Rs 100 crore. He lists the names of more than half a dozen business houses and names their lawyers,who,he maintained,were colluding with his senior officers to finish him off.

Jadeja says in the video that he took the extreme step because he feared his detractors were even trying to frame him as well: “Just as they show in the movies where villains are used to frame people,these lawyers are being used as a third party to frame me.” Based on his suicide note,the police have registered a case against three officers under IPC 506 and 506(2) for making threats.

The Jamnagar police maintained the delay in registering a case for abetment of suicide under IPC 306 was because “procedures must be followed”. “Jadeja died at Rajkot. So we have to wait for the papers from the Rajkot police, they are supposed to have sent them but we have yet to get them,” said A L Mehta,the sub-inspector probing the case. He admitted no one has been questioned so far.