Death of key witness: Kin rule out foul play

A pall of gloom,meanwhile,descended on the Panchkula residence of Kali Ram,who is survived by his wife,a son and two daughters. His family denied any knowledge of the scam and said Kali Ram was suffering from severe depression for quite some time and might have died due to a cardiac arrest.

“We don’t have anything to say,there has been no foul play and whatever that has happened is extremely unfortunate. It’s a natural death and we don’t blame anyone for it,” said Birbal Singh Verma,brother-in-law of the deceased.

Kali Ram was found dead in a Nayagaon hotel on Friday,three days after the UT police Vigilance Cell had examined him as a witness in the case.

The engineer,in his mid-50s,had left his Sector-15 home in Panchkula on Thursday morning but did not reach office nor did he return home. He was employed in the main cement store of the MC in Sector 26.

“The postmortem of Kali Ram has been conducted and the viscera samples have been sent for CFSL examination. It is only after the report that the cause of the death will be ascertained,” said Investigating Officer Lakhwinder Singh.

Meanwhile,an official of the Chandigarh Police said that Kali Ram,in his statement,had accused contractor Harshwardhan in the cement pilferage scam while he used to guard cement sub-store in Sector 26.

“When we recorded Kali Ram’s statements,he said the accused contractor used to take cement from the store and used to put his signatures in his presence as per the normal procedure. He must be having some personal problem otherwise his death has nothing to do with the case,” said DSP UT Vigilance Promod Kumar.