Police set their own deadline, then break it

NEW DELHI, JAN 6: The deadline is over. And the police have little to showexcept their ineffectiveness. On December 5, Ajai Raj Sharma, Co...

NEW DELHI, JAN 6: The deadline is over. And the police have little to showexcept their ineffectiveness. On December 5, Ajai Raj Sharma, Commissioner of Police was reported as saying that the Shivani murder case would be solved in “three weeks to a months’ time.”

High time, given that on January 23, it will be one year after Shivani, Principal Correspondent of The Indian Express was found stabbed in her Mayur Vihar residence. Sharma’s one month elapsed today and there was nothing to show that the police are worried at violating their own deadline. Said key investigator in the case Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) K K Paul: “We had given the deadline based on certain leads that had come our way…We have been investigating the case for close to a year now."

“Enough time has been put in. Only certain clinching evidence remains. We are close to it but it is not available to us so far,” added the Joint Commissioner.

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What kind of evidence is this? Have the police narrowed down the suspects? Arethere any fresh developments? No comment, said K.K. Paul. “The type of evidence we are looking for is not available at the moment," he added. "The investigations nevertheless continue in a systematic and sincere manner not trying to overlook anything. The case, after all, will be taken to the court of law,” said he. So why did the police set a deadline in the first place? Surely, the Office of the Commissioner would have made the commitment based on credible inputs from Crime Branch investigators. “Yes,” said Paul. “At a particular point of the investigations, in a particular perspective, it did appear as if the case would get solved. That particular clinching evidence is not available.”

Shivani murder: We may know who may have done it’
On December 5, police chief Ajai Raj Sharma said: “We are close to solving Shivani case. It would be worked out in three weeks to a month’s time.”

Now, the police chief says: “I never gave a statement like that. After Irfan’s case wasworked out, journalists began to ask me how soon the Shivani case would be cracked. One asked me if it would be solved within 15 days, to which I replied no. Then another asked if it would take a month. I replied it could happen anytime as we are on the right line.” The court will not agree unless evidentiary value is there,” Sharma went on. “We have done good work so far. We may, in fact, know who may have done it, but have to prove it. The prosecution story would have to be strengthened.” But, he added: “For any blind murder such as this it is difficult to give a time frame.

Nothing to detect

The only fact the police were willing to state: IPS officer R.K. Sharma, who police said was to undergo a Lie Detector test, is “yet to appear” for it.

Earlier, it had been said that the IPS officer was avoiding a Lie Detector test and citing health reasons. So, a medical board was formed to test his fitness or otherwise for the lie detector examination. But, the police is saying nothingabout what the medical board has found.