Exactly a week after ‘‘double suicides’’ rocked the Satyendra Dubey murder probe, police and investigators are veering around to believe that Mukender Paswan and Sheonath Sao could have been murdered. And the Salphas poison the two consumed was administered without their knowing what it was. An investigation by The Sunday Express, including extensive interviews of police officials, relatives and residents of Katari village—where the two men lived—shows that not only did the CBI not take precautions to protect the two men it was interrogating, there was also a clear threat to their lives. At the centre of this is Rajesh Kumar (alias Babloo), a local telephone booth owner, one of the five Katari residents questioned by the CBI. Although he has no criminal cases against him, he is widely acknowledged as ‘‘Katari’s don’’ and is involved in several land-grab disputes. Ironically, he has the privilege of first-hand knowledge of who were summoned to the CBI camp office in Gaya and when. Reason: Only once, the CBI sent summons through Chandauti police station. Subsequently, agency officials would call up the booth directly and ask Rajesh to convey their message to those asked to appear for questioning. Rajesh’s role also raises several questions: • On the day the two died, Rajesh, right from morning kept telling villagers: Aaj hi wicket girna hai. Dekha jayega kaun kis ka police spy hai. (It’s today that a wicket will fall.let’s see who is a spy for the police.) This is confirmed by villagers, police and Rajesh himself. • Incidentally, Rajesh, who claims he is a Bajrang Dal activist, is leading the agitation against the CBI and was key in filing the FIR accusing the agency of killing the two men. Rajesh controls all access to the village and to families of Paswan and Sao. • Rajesh is also the one who led the group that almost lynched Ram Vinay Singh, Pradeep’s foster father, the rickshaw-puller who saw Dubey being murdered. Pradeep, as The Indian Express had reported, is missing after his interrogation by the CBI. • Father of one of the victims contradicts the earlier official version of the incident that the two victims after having consumed the poison went to their houses where they died. Baijnath Sao, father of Sheonath, told The Sunday Express: ‘‘Many people are giving wrong versions of what happened. I saw my son taking a bath in the morning in the house. When I saw him next, he was dead in the hospital.’’ Police have no answer as to why no FIR was filed in the assault on Ram Vinay Singh. • Significantly, although three others were summoned by the CBI, all were released after a day’s questioning. Paswan and Sao were called repeatedly—first on January 24, then for five consecutive days from January 27 to January 31. ‘‘It worried those who had vested interests,’’ said a police officer. ‘‘The obvious plan was to eliminate the two and snap the chain of information that the CBI had established through these two about the gangs in Katari village.’’ Katari, in the outskirts of Gaya, is a veritable den of road robbers and criminals.
