Laced feni killed Rajiv Rajah

But what is baffling is that the police never seized the bottle of suspicious feni when they found it. Arguably, there would have been finger prints on the bottle that could have been dead-giveaways. Instead, after drawing some of the liquid for sampling, the feni bottle was left behind in the garage.

According to Rajiv’s sister Sheetal, “The police emptied a portion of the feni into an empty Bisleri bottle. Instead of recovering the finger prints from the bottle, they held the bottle with bare hands. The cops did not even take the bottle along with them for further investigations. The bottle is lying in the kitchen even now.”

Asked about this, one of the investigators (a senior officer in south district), said somewhat lamely: “We could not seize the bottle because the family refused to give it to us. Even the feni sample we took was something we managed with great difficulty.”

In a related development, AIIMS’s Dr R K Sharma, who has conducted the pathological tests, today Express Newsline: “All the four samples tested positive to organo phosphorous compound. There has been no evidence of homicidal poisoning. Moreover, it so bitter that forcing it down someone else’s throat takes a lot of doing. Moreover, in Rajiv’s case, it is clear that the poison was not been injected into his body. Had that been the case, the poison would not be present in the vomit sample that we tested.”

Dr Sharma ruled out the possibility of the feni having fermented to poisonous proportions because it was last opened around six years ago. He said: “Contamination cannot generate organic acids. Organo phosphorous compounds are used in most poisoning cases in India. It is a deadly poison.”

However, the tests conducted at the AIIMS laboratory have neither been able to determine the exact quantity of organo phosphorous compound present in the samples nor the exact nature of the compound that was used. AIIMS laboratory experts claim that they are not equipped for this and that only CFSL can provide such reports.

The south district police are not taking the reports as final. “The AIIMS tests are not conclusive. We are waiting for the CFSL reports. Only when we get those reports can we get say something definite.”

Senior south district officials discussed the reports with Dr R.K. Sharma this afternoon. Police officials including Addl DCP Vivek Gogia, ACP Mahadev Mehta and SHO Girish Kumar met Dr Sharma at the Forensic Department around 2.30 pm today and the took him along to their offices to pick his brains further.