Retired officer linked to Vyapam is found dead

Relatives and onlookers react at the scene of a bus crash at Chervulo Palem in Prakasam district of Andhra Pradesh yesterday.IANSNew Delhi/BhubaneswarA retired Indian Forest Service officer who acted as an observer in two Vyapam recruitment tests in Madhya Pradesh was found dead on a railway track in Jharsuguda in Odisha, police said yesterday.Reacting to the news, the Congress said: “We condemn this and hope and trust that the cycle of deaths does not resume again.“There is a deep-seated, far-reaching, ‘vyapak’ (expansive) conspiracy in Vyapam and any self-respecting government should have resigned long ago, owning responsibility. It was only when compelled to do so, with great resistance, that they (state government) even agreed to a CBI inquiry,” Congress spokesman Abhishek Manu Singhvi said in Delhi.Terming the Vyapam scam “shocking” and “unprecedented,” Singhvi said never in independent India’s history had one scam claimed so many lives in different states.Vijay Bahadur’s body was found on a track near Belpahar station under South-Eastern Railway’s Jharsuguda junction on Thursday. He was travelling to Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh from Puri in Odisha with his wife Nita Singh by the Puri-Jodhpur Express.Superintendent of Railway Police Karam Sey said by phone that prima facie Bahadur appeared to have accidentally fallen off the running train.The official, however, said the actual cause of death would be known only after getting the postmortem report.“We are investigating the matter even though no first information report was filed by the family at our police station,” said Kawar, adding that the family had already taken the body after the autopsy.Police sources said Nita Singh reported to the train ticket checker about her missing husband after reaching Raigarh station, about 70km from Jharsuguda district.Bahadur’s death is the first case of mysterious death related to Vyapam scam after the Supreme Court in July handed over the probe to the Central Bureau of Investigation.Over 40 accused or others connected with Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal (Vyapam) or the Madhya Pradesh Professional Examination Board (MPPEB) scam have died under mysterious circumstances so far.