Small town to fast lane, she was drawn to flashing beacons

Yesterday, the police sought the court’s permission to apply to the Chief Medical Officer for a special wooden box in which the foetus will be sent to the Central Detective Training School Laboratory in Hyderabad. Once the computerised DNA fingerprint of the foetus arrives here, the police will match it with the DNA samples of the suspects they are lining up.

For UP’s opposition parties and a section of Lucknow’s media, all this is quite unnecessary. Madhumita’s relationship with Minister of State for Stamps and Stationery, Amar Mani Tripathi, they claim was an established fact.

Says Ahmad Hassan, Leader of the Opposition in the Legislative Council: ‘‘There is enough evidence with the police to put Tripathi behind bars. He is a known history-sheeter and a mafia don and has been to prison several times earlier. But since he is close to Chief Minister Mayawati, a massive cover-up is on, and bit by bit, all evidence will be destroyed.’’

The investigation is definitely moving at a slow pace despite the police admitting to some important breakthroughs. Police officials confirmed to The Indian Express that the testimony of Madhumita’s 11-year-old servant, Desh Raj, was incriminating.

He had admitted that the 21-year-old Hindi poetess had taken him along when she spent an evening at the minister’s house. He was left with the servants when she went inside. He has also reeled out names and addresses of other VIPs whom Madhumita was seeing.

Mahanagar Inspector Arjun Kumar Chaturvedi is the investigating officer in the case and appears to be a lone ranger. ‘‘Besides some VIP suspects, we have confirmed that Madhumita was also seeing some anti-social elements. Two of them have histories of jailbreaks. Whoever killed Madhumita was very powerful and we will not name any suspect till we corroborate everything. A clear picture will emerge in a month’s time,’’ he said. Inspector Chaturvedi shared some more evidence recovered from Madhumita’s house — two smartcard room keys of Delhi’s Taj Mahal Hotel and five SIM cards of cellular companies operating in Delhi and Mumbai. Evidence that despite being a small-town girl, Madhumita was moving on the fast track after she shifted to Lucknow about two years ago.

Besides this, the police recovered ultrasound reports and hotel bills from Madhumita’s residence. A personal diary, Chaturvedi reveals, has several hand-written entries about a promised marriage, visits to hotels, her being forced into having an abortion and so on. The names of individuals are written in a code language and the diary has been sealed and dispatched to court.

Enquiries at Madhumita’s Lucknow residence at Paper Mill Colony and her family home in Lakhimpur Kheri evoke different reactions. Madhumita’s neighbours, who don’t wish to be identified, say they frequently saw Ambassador cars with red lights outside her house. During festivals these brought sweets and gifts.

Vidya Yadav, a Samajwadi Party leader, who lives a few houses away, says she clearly identified Amar Mani Tripathi and his car several times.

Madhumita, according to several neighbours, was a kind of recluse but became the talk of the colony when Tripathi’s wife, Madhumani, landed up one morning and screamed at her for having an affair with her husband.

At Lakhimpur Kheri, 130 km from Lucknow, Madhumita’s family is now desperately trying to shrug away the scandal that followed her death. They are denying even her pregnancy. Madhumita’s mother, Shanti Shukla, says they are trying to procure video films of the public gatherings she attended in April to show how slim she looked.

‘‘The Mayawati camp and the Mulayam camp are trying to use my daughter’s murder for political ends,’’ she says.

The family says they were traumatised by the manner in which the hearse van carrying Madhumita’s body had to return to Lucknow since the police forgot the DNA sampling during the initial post-mortem.

Madhumita’s sister, Nidhi, who was spewing vitriol against Tripathi and had named the minister’s wife as the culprit, now looks quite chastised. She says she named Tripathi after the murder only as one of the VIPs who attended her functions.

She points to their drawing-room full of trophies and awards her sister won and says it is a promising poetess whose life has been snuffed out as part of a larger political conspiracy. And it is this poem, recently penned by her sister according to her, that says it all: ‘‘Kalam ke sipahi agar so gaye toh/ watan ke sipahi watan bech denge.’’ (If those who wield the pen fall asleep, then the country’s soldiers [a reference to leaders] will sell off the nation.