Curiouser and curiouser

That the murder of Express principal correspondent Shivani Bhatnagar has remained unsolved these three and a half years and more, despite a trail of very significant leads, indicates one of two things. Either the Delhi Police, and their counterparts elsewhere, are stupendously incompetent, or there are some very powerful forces working behind the scenes to ensure that the truth remains suppressed. Both reasons make it even more incumbent upon the authorities to solve this jigsaw puzzle of a case, where among the missing pieces is a missing ‘prime suspect’: Inspector General Ravi Kant Sharma, who has successful dodged the long arm of the law despite a non-bailable arrest warrant being issued against him. He has now filed for bail in the Delhi high court.

What, of course, has introduced a whole new dimension to the case are the revelations of Sharma’s wife last week. She maintained that her husband is being framed and that the law enforcing agencies and the union home ministry are deliberately overlooking the involvement of union minister for communications and parliamentary affairs, Pramod Mahajan, in this crime. Her charges can, and in fact are, being dismissed as the ravings of a hysterical woman who is fighting to save her guilty husband. This, in fact, is the line of reasoning that the BJP has advanced, in order to defend an important party leader and Mahajan even plans to file a defamation suit against her. However, since Madhu Sharma has made these sensational charges, they cannot be brushed aside. Since it is in Mahajan’s own interest to clear his name, the current investigation must take her accusations into consideration.

At the same time, it would be wrong to consider Mahajan guilty merely on the basis of Madhu Sharma’s words. People in public life are vulnerable to false charges being made against them and, therefore, the Congress’s argument that Mahajan resign forthwith is untenable. Neither should this turn out to be a trial by the media, with public speculation leaping ahead of meticulous investigation. We would therefore repeat, yet again, that old cliche: let the law take its course, uninfluenced by the big names thrown up in this tragic case.