Aam Aadmi Party’s Uttar Pradesh co-convener Murari Jain (61), was found dead under mysterious circumstances on a dry riverbed under a railway bridge on the Bhopal-Jhansi line in Sagar district Monday morning, police said on Tuesday.
The family members and the party suspect it could be murder and have demanded a high-level inquiry.
Deepak Jain, the nephew of Murari Jain, a resident of Lalitpur district in Uttar Pradesh, said the AAP leader was returning home in the Pushpak Express after attending a party programme in Lucknow.
He said his younger brother Vivek received a phone call from his uncle saying that he couldn’t deboard at Lalitpur as he was asleep and that he would get down at Bina in Madhya Pradesh if the train halted there. Otherwise, his uncle said, he would get down at Bhopal, the next stop.
Deepak Jain said his uncle also told Vivek that the train’s location was perhaps the bridge over Narayani river, the same spot where his body was found the next day. The place is 285 km east of Bhopal. When Vivek called up again his uncle after half an hour the latter’s mobile phone was switched off.
Bhangarh police station in-charge Sumit Sharma said, “The dead body was lying on the river bed under the railway bridge in a forest area about 20 kilometres from Bhangarh. A small bag with clothes in it, his mobile phone and some documents were lying nearby. There were fractures in both the legs as if he had suffered injuries after falling from the bridge. There were injuries in the head and other parts of the body also.”
{{/usCountry}}Bhangarh police station in-charge Sumit Sharma said, “The dead body was lying on the river bed under the railway bridge in a forest area about 20 kilometres from Bhangarh. A small bag with clothes in it, his mobile phone and some documents were lying nearby. There were fractures in both the legs as if he had suffered injuries after falling from the bridge. There were injuries in the head and other parts of the body also.”
{{/usCountry}}“The body was handed over to his family. We are still waiting for the post-mortem report to find out the cause of death. It doesn’t appear to be a case of loot and murder but we are investigating to find out what caused Jain’s death and under what circumstances.”
Jain’s nephew Deepak said, “We want a high-level inquiry as the body has been found in mysterious circumstances. It could be a case of murder.”
AAP Madhya Pradesh secretary (organization) Mukesh Jaiswal said, “We have doubt that the AAP co-convener did not die in a mishap. There should be a high-level inquiry into it.”
(With inputs from Anupam Pateriya in Sagar)