Murder in Nanda’s House and role of Police Janeshwar Sharma, 45, an ex-service man was working with a certain Anil Nanda. Anil Nanda is the vice-chairman and managing director of Escorts Ltd. He is the younger son of Har Prasad Nanda - the late founder of the Lahore based agency house that grew into the agricultural machinery giant Escorts Lt. With this introduction of the major characters, we come to the sequence of events. Janeshwar, was hospitalised in Safdarjung Hospital with serious burn injuries on June 9. He was presumably set on fire by unidentified persons at the New Friends Colony residence of the Anil Nanda. He struggled for life for nearly a week and finally succumbed to it on . Now comes the truly sad aspect of the entire story. The incidence happened in one of the most posh localities in New Delhi. The patient was admitted in in a hospital where every information passes to all the concerned authorities within no time. The police in Delhi claims to be highly alert and active. And yet, nothing seems to be moving in the case till the time Janeshwar dies and the matter is taken up by the Media (including the big News channels) in a very big way. Now the matter is in lime-light and we all know about it. The Southeast Delhi police also questioned Anil Nanda on 18/06/10.But it was nine days after Janeshwar was set on fire at Nanda’s house. The real question is- What was the Delhi Police doing all this time? Why did it take nine days and the death of Janeshwar for the Delhi Police to come into action? Now it has questioned 28 people. Many more might follow. Presently no conclusion has been drawn. The Police might come to final conclusion as well, if the matter is kept highlighted by the media. Or it might sleep again if the matter slips out of public mind. Thus everything depends on how media takes up a cause. As if the police have no sense of their own? As if the police have no personal responsibility? As if the police id completely deaf and dumb? This is not the end of it. In this case Janeshwar had even given a statement. . In his dying declaration, he had told the police he had not seen his attackers but had clearly hinted at the involvement of Nanda’s business partner Vijay Sinha. A case of attempted murder was registered on this statement. And yet nothing was done. Shameless. Now Virender Singh Chahal, Additional Commissioner of Police (Southeast) says- “We have questioned several people. Investigations are on” But when the man was battling for life for seven days, not even his statement was formally registered. All we have now is his words to a private news channel, whose validity in the eyes of law is definitely much lower. This when on June 14, even the SDM had directed the SHO to report the action taken in the case. Even today the Delhi police is not able to conclude and to take any action despite the fact that in a letter, written before his death and in an interview Janeshwar had clearly said he feared threat to his life from Nanda and two others, Dheeraj Balani and Jeetendra Pandey. This is not sufficient evidence because Nanda is rich and powerful. In other case, much inferior and weaker evidences lead to arrest of the accused. Not here where Chahal says- “ We are corroborating Sharma’s statement to the television channel. We have asked the channel for the unedited tapes,” Even the FIR (written in Hindi) clearly names Vijay Sinha. Yet senior Police officers are telling abject lie. Why? About the letter, said to have been written by the victim before he died and sent to police by his brother Yogesh leveling accusations against Nanda for as serious a matter as forced and paid Gay sex with Nanda’s employees, police says, "we are examining it. It is yet to be verified who wrote it. This is also part of the investigation." We, from the National RTI Forum, are deeply perturbed at the role of the Police and have asked a few questions from the Delhi Police under the provisions of the RTI Act. The questions mainly relate to the facts of the case (as per the official records) and the action taken by the police (again as per the official records). We all know that there are certain mandatory duties of the Police in all such cases as this one. None of these duties seem to have been done by the Delhi Police here including going to the scene of crime, registering a FIR immediately, starting the investigation immediately, registering (and getting it registered with a Magistrate) of the statements of the dying person etc. We feel that cases like this show the blatantly partisan behavior of the police and anyone found clearly responsible for dereliction of duty must be made answerable for it. This is an example of extreme inhuman police inaction. Dr Nutan Thakur, Coordinator, National RTI Forum, Lucknow # 94155-34525
