The Rear Window Is Ajar

Three separate disclosures dominated the headlines last fortnight: the petrol pump allotment scam, the Sanjay Dutt-Chhota Shakeel tapes and the involvement of a senior police officer in the Shivani murder case. There is a commonality: all three of them have a political dimension. The facts in all of them were well known to the government but kept under wraps and emerged suddenly in the public domain, unwittingly in the case of the petrol pump scam and deliberately "leaked" by government agencies in the case of the other two. In the Shivani case, after a gap of three years.

While the Delhi cops focused on the arrest of chief suspect and Haryana IG R.K. Sharma, so persistent were the rumours of a political angle in the murder of Shivani Bhatnagar that the Delhi police was compelled to release a statement denying any link with a Union minister in the case.

But Sharma himself, in his anticipatory bail plea, said he was being made a scapegoat by influential people who were the real culprits in the case. His wife repeated the charge in an interview to Star News. But at a subsequent press meet, there was a subtle shift in her position. She alleged the home ministry was trying to coerce her husband to name a influential person.

Shivani, an Indian Express journalist, was found murdered in her east Delhi flat on January 23, 1999, with her four-month-old baby asleep in the next room. At the time, police sources said cabinet notes, traceable to a minister, had been recovered from her house. That the minister was a 'contact' of hers was well known. Also that he was introduced to her by Sharma, who himself made his acquaintance with Shivani when he was posted in the PMO.

Officially, the police confined itself to the bald facts: that two men with a box of gifts and a wedding invitation arrived at Shivani's flat, tried to strangle her with an electric wire and when she resisted, stabbed her. Her intimate relationship with Sharma was a known fact, but it took over three-and-a-half years for the police to make their first arrest, based on the theory that the police officer wanted to get rid of her because she was forcing him to marry her. Only a week later did they announce his involvement.

It's being alleged in police headquarters that this course could well have been taken a year ago. Various reasons, from political pressure to changes in the investigating team, are being cited for the delay. Also, the murderers appear to be first-time offenders, not having shown up in any police data. During the investigation, the cops questioned hundreds of people, including Shivani's relatives, friends and acquaintances and those of her husband, Rakesh Bhatnagar. Even writer Amaresh Mishra, a friend of Sharma's daughter, was questioned last week. But if at all the minister was questioned, the police is certainly not telling.

Sharma, the grapevine has it, was in possession of taped conversations between Shivani and the minister which seriously threatened the latter. While no one seriously believes the minister is involved in the case itself, they feel Sharma's disclosures will seriously embarrass him by revealing his proximity to the murdered journalist. And that might just be what his detractors want.

The arrest last week of Sri Bhagwan, who allegedly arranged Shivani's murder by Pradeep and Satya Prakash at Sharma's behest, does appear to be a major breakthrough. Sri Bhagwan is the son of an sho in Haryana who served under Sharma when he was an SP. But it's not clear if there is enough evidence to nail the police officer. Senior officials privately admit the evidence is largely circumstantial, based on confessional statements which have a notorious habit of changing in the course of a trial. They also have telephone records for eight months.For instance, Shivani and Sharma are said to have exchanged many calls, including 187 while she was on a scholarship in London, and continued to be in close touch till the murder.

U.K. Katna, joint commissioner (crime), was defensive last week on whether the police had enough evidence to convict Sharma. When asked why it was Bhatnagar's lawyer rather than the police counsel who opposed Sharma's anticipatory bail plea, he didn't have an answer, merely saying the police had not received any notice. On the subject of why Sharma was not arrested earlier, he said the police wanted to be sure of their facts before making a move.

What's clear is that Sharma, who had a stint as an OSD in the PMO under I.K. Gujral, is well connected politically. Last week itself, while he was supposedly absconding, he is believed to have been at a party thrown by a Congress MP at the Delhi farmhouse of another Congress MP. He later moved to Himachal Pradesh. A minor Haryana politician, who's said to have been close to both Sharma and a Congress MP from the south, is believed to have been instrumental in bringing Shivani and the top cop together. Another minor politico is, in fact, alleged to have been involved in a previous attempt on the journalist's life.

Given his political connections, it's feared that Sharma may eventually get away while his henchmen, against whom there is direct physical evidence in the form of fingerprints, etc, will take the fall. After all, none of the other notorious Sharmas have yet been convicted, be it Sushil "tandoor" Sharma or Romesh Sharma of underworld fame.