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Sachan death: CJM puts Lucknow jailer in the dock

Last updated on: July 01, 2011 00:50 IST

Local district jail superintendent Vir Sen Mukund, who was seen as suspect in the mysterious death of jailed deputy chief medical officer Dr Y S Sachan inside a jail toilet on June 10, was on Thursday summoned by Chief Judicial Magistrate Rajesh Upadhaya, who was conducting a one-man judicial probe into what now being believed to be murder and not suicide as it was sought to be initially dismissed.

Commencing the judicial probe into the incident, Upadhaya on Thursday castigated the jail superintendent and sought his explanation on the glaring official lapses that allowed the killing to take place inside the jail.

Mukund, who has been under cloud ever since his posting from Jaunpur to Lucknow barely two weeks before Sachan's alleged murder, was grilled by the CJM for hours in his chamber, where he had been summoned to depose before him.

The CJM also questioned the jail superintendent on his much publicised nexus with a mafia don turned ruling Bahujan Samaj Party MP, whose involvement in the murder has also been widely talked about.

"How could such a crime take place in jail?" asked the CJM, who had earlier issued notice to the jail authorities to submit a long list of documents. Mukund was stated to have furnished the post-mortem report, a copy of the post-mortem videography together with list of all inmates of the jail at the time of the murder as also the names of each of the 60 inmates who were admitted to the prison hospital at that time.

CJM Upadhaya was stated to have taken serious note of the finding that one of the nine wounds detected on the slain doctor's body was post-mortem, while the rest were ante mortem.

He also reprimanded the jail superintendent on the sudden shutting of close-circuit cameras installed in different parts of the Lucknow district jail.

Apparently unsatisfied with Mukund's replies, the CJM has now summoned his next in line Jailor J P.Srivastava on Friday.

Srivastava was among the five jail officials to be suspended for their prima facie responsibility.

Sachan was found dead in mysterious circumstances inside a toilet of the jail hospital on June 10. While the state police initially tried to dismiss it as a case of suicide, mounting public pressure eventually compelled them to register it as a case of murder.

He was key accused in the murder of his superior chief medical officer Dr B P Singh, who was gunned down close to his residence while he was on his routine morning walk on April 2.

Significantly, Singh's predecessor Dr Vinod Arya was also killed in the exactly the same manner and shot by masked motor-cyclists in October 2010 during the course of his usual morning walk.

Award of huge contracts for supply of goods and equipment under the centrally funded Rs 3500-crore National Rural Health Mission and large scale bungling of funds were officially stated to be the cause behind both the murders.

Earlier, two cabinet ministers directly connected with the handling of the NRHM programme were eased out of the government, even as their ouster was described as "stepping down on moral grounds."

It was an open secret that Chief Minister Mayawati took the resignation of her then Health Minister Anant Kumar Misra and Family Welfare Minister Babu Singh Kushwaha when they were alleged to be neck deep in the large scale pilferage of funds.

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow