What about foul play?

The Mahajan saga continues to haunt the BJP, which continues to maintain its distance from the prominent players in the case, writes Pankaj Vohra.

The Mahajan saga continues to haunt the BJP, which, despite repeated noises of support for Rahul Mahajan by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, continues to maintain its distance from the prominent players in the case. Perhaps it knows well that the headache caused by the hangover of the cocaine-champagne-heroin cocktail is likely to last some time. The twin episodes — the first involving Pramod Mahajan and his brother Pravin, and the second featuring Bibek Moitra, Rahul Mahajan and Sahil Zaroo with some others — have raised a lot of questions. For reasons best known to the police agencies, the political and financial dimensions of the cases have not been probed so far.

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The episode on the night of June 1 has brought into focus how from the very beginning a cover-up had begun. This apparently took place with the active connivance of the Apollo Hospital authorities, whose conduct would have greatly embarrassed those who have taken the Hippocratic oath. It is a matter of surprise that the Delhi Police have so far failed to arrest Apollo staff members who wilfully engaged in distorting facts and suppressing vital information while projecting a totally erroneous picture of Rahul’s recovery. The possibility of the staff succeeding in their objective would have been very strong had Bibek Moitra not died due to overdose of drugs, which he voluntarily consumed or was made to consume.

On the first day of the incident, Gopinath Munde, Rahul’s uncle and senior BJP leader, had spoken about a conspiracy and alleged foul play. However, since Rahul’s release from hospital, Munde has not repeated the charge. Nevertheless, the police must look into all aspects. After all, the case is in the public domain and from the accused to the doctors, everyone has tried to hold a press conference to project viewpoints, whether right or wrong, misleading or deceptive.

A debate has been raging in the media on the failure of the police to recover adequate quantities of drugs from the accused. There have been conjectures that the police case was very weak, and that Rahul deserved sympathy and should not be treated as a criminal. There is no doubt that Mahajan Jr should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. That he requires help to deal with his medical problems is agreed. But that should not interfere with a broad-based investigation. The rather clerical approach being taken may reduce the case to one that hinges solely on recovery of drugs.

One has to remember that the investigators have faced constraints right from the beginning. Even though there was sufficient quantity of drugs to cause Moitra’s death, Rahul’s hospitalisation and Sahil Zaroo’s visit to a private nursing home, the police could recover little from the scene. A replay of the events of the night of June 1 makes it clear that evidence was destroyed —

in particular, the portion of the house where the drugs were consumed was washed. Hence, more than the recovery, it was the circumstantial evidence that propped up the case.

Mahajan’s staff and his friends who chose to take Rahul and Moitra to Apollo ignored the fact that there were three hospitals within a 3-km radius of 7, Safdarjung Road, and took them 16 kilometres away to Apollo. It is possible that had the two been taken to a hospital nearby, Moitra would have survived. At Apollo, the doctors did not immediately inform the police and took over two hours to do so. The sachet containing heroin was handed over to the police by the hospital staff, and the police had no way of knowing if it was the only sachet recovered from the person of the deceased and the accused. The MLC was prepared in the absence of a police official and the entry and exit records of the hospital were found to have been fudged.

Investigations have revealed that Rahul gained consciousness by 6.30 am on June 2 but was wheeled into the ICU from emergency and put on ventilator though his breathing was not a cause of concern anymore. He was kept in the ICU, but several tests that should have been conducted were not. The hospital then held a press conference to give an erroneous impression about his health. In the ICU, Mahajan Jr had a diet high on protein, highly unusual for someone in an ICU. Yet, the police could not question him because the hospital insisted he was unfit to make a statement. It is also an uncanny coincidence that Rahul’s bill was settled by Raji Chandru, the hospital administrator who had done the same when Rahul was admitted to Apollo in 2002, for what is now being described as meningitis.

In short, the investigations suffered due to Apollo’s non-cooperation. But where the police deserve flak is why they have failed to probe the foul play angle in Moitra’s death. It is true that Moitra died of drug overdose but did he wilfully consume the huge quantity? It is an open secret that Moitra was privy to Pramod Mahajan’s political and financial dealings and getting him out of the way may have served the purpose of those who may not necessarily have been present when the drugs were consumed. The police must also scrutinise the cellphone records of the accused, and Moitra’s links with drug suppliers must be investigated.

It is also strange that Rahul chose to address a press conference while his case was in court. The episode has also brought into focus how extra-judicial methods are being used by some of the players to give a twist to the investigations. One is willing to believe that Rahul is not a drug dependent, but what about the CFSL findings? Either he is lying or the CFSL is. The mystery will be solved by a thorough investigation. Between us.