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For the last few days, various WhatsApp groups have been flooded with messages that journalists from newspapers and channels of international repute like Washington Post and British Broadcasting Corporation are camping in Bhopal to dig out the truth behind back-to-back unexplained deaths pertaining to the Vyapam scam.
Vyapam is Hindi abbreviation of Madhya Pradesh Vyavasayik Pariksha Mandal (MP Professional Examination Board). It was formed in 1970 and entrusted with the task of conducting Professional Examinations.
Read more from our special coverage on "VYAPAM SCAM"
- Vyapam: Congress says BJP putting roadblocks of lame duck excuses
- Vyapam: Under-fire Shivraj Singh Chouhan to request HC for CBI probe
- Under pressure, Shivraj Singh Chouhan says ready for CBI probe in Vyapam scam
- Vyapam scam: Shivraj Singh Chouhan to request MP HC to order CBI probe in scam
- Vyapam scam a silly issue: Sadananda Gowda
Subsequently in 2007, Vyapam, by promulgation of an Act, was also entrusted with the task to conduct various entrance examinations for jobs in state government departments; Education, Police, Transport, Weight and Measures, Dairy and State Excise etc.
Contrary to the state Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s claim that he initiated a probe into the scam, an ex-MLA Paras Saklecha from Ratlam released a book "Vyapam Mahaghotala" recently and claimed that he had raised the issue in 2009 on the floor of the state assembly and demanded answers from Chouhan. He also claimed in his book that local racketeers kept on coming up with advertisements offering confirmed success in PMT (pre-medical test), but yet no action was taken against them. The government made no effort to arrest the scamsters even after the issue was raised in the Assembly till a case was registered by the Indore Crime Branch on July 7, 2013 against unknown persons, following a tip-off.
As many as 55 cases, according to Saklecha, were registered in various police stations of the state during 2000 and 2012 mainly against scorers, question paper solvers, impersonators and touts. But most of the cases remained buried in police files and the accused were never brought to justice.
Later, 22 scorers were arrested. Till then, Vyapam provided an easy opportunity to enter professional courses like medical and engineering as well as getting appointments in various government jobs, by paying bribes.
But unlike other scams like the Haryana teachers recruitment scam or the Bihar fodder scam, Vyapam is much bigger in scale. Despite that, except for a cabinet minister Laxmikant Sharma, most bigwigs are still at large. The Special Task Force (STF), the investigating and prosecuting agency appointed by the High Court, has managed to arrest 1800 people including middlemen, students, scorers, imposters and touts but no one is clear who is the mastermind behind this scam.
Politically, the Congress has tried to use the Vyapam scam to corner the BJP at various ocassions, demanding a detailed investigation by a more competent agency like the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The entire episode took a politically ugly turn when the State Governor Ram Naresh Yadav was named in an FIR. His son Shailesh Yadav and another official on special duty Dhanraj Yadav too figured in separate FIRs. But Yadav took legal refuge and much to everyone's disappointment, the FIR against the Governor was quashed by the Jabalpur High Court on grounds that the Governor has a constitutional protection under Article 361 (2) and 361 (3). A division bench of the court comprising Chief Justice A M Khanwilkar and Justice Rohit Arya not only quashed the FIR against the octogenarian Governor but also ordered the Special Task Force (STF), the agency responsible for the probe, not to take any "coercive action" against him. Shailesh Yadav was mysteriously found dead in his father's residence at Mall Road, Lucknow.
Also, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who had shown doors to eleven governors, remained silent on removing Yadav. No one is able to digest that despite the alleged complicity of the Governor in the forest guard recruitment exam, he could not be investigated since he has immunity provided by some constitutional provisions.
More interestingly, Senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh who moved the Supreme Court claiming to have evidence like an “excel-sheet” and a “pen-drive” relied upon an "external" whistle blower, whose services as a cyber-expert were once hired by Indore Police in cracking the matrix of the case. He made an effort to corner Chouhan on the issue and tried to prove him as the script-writer of the entire scam but met with little success.
Last three-days have witnessed three back-to-back unexplained deaths prompting the Congress to call for a CBI investigation and resignation of the state Chief Minister in the hope that the BJP will be pressurised to take some tough political steps.
The death of India Today Journalist Akshay Singh and later college dean Arun Sharma, whose body was found in a Delhi hotel, gave the Congress more ammunition to make fresh allegations against chief minister Chouhan and the involvement of his family members in the scam.
Chouhan has maintained that he is not above the High Court or Supreme Court and could not do much to demand for a CBI probe even after the death of Akshay Singh who was in the state to discover facts behind the death of a girl whose body was found on railway track after her name figured in the scam. Sharma was the second dean of the same medical college to have died under suspicious circumstances in the past two years.
Further, casual comments of Chouhan's cabinet colleagues like Babulal Gaur and Kailash Vijayvergiya over recent deaths have made it tougher for the embattled chief minister to evade volley of questions raised by journalists and various sections of the society. As a result, subtle speculations of foul play have refused to die down.
As unofficial claims from Congress and other sources say that as many as 46 persons have died so far, Chouhan and his cabinet colleagues have repeatedly insisted that the number is not more than 25 and not all deaths could be related to the Vyapam scam.
The dramatic events in the scam witnessed many twists and turns but the death of TV journalist Akshay Singh has brought the case into national spotlight. And future aspirants of professional courses and government jobs are now hoping that the case will be brought to its logical conclusion once the Supreme Court intervenes.
