Nithari witness' head held under water as he died

Nithari witness autopsy points to murder, even as CBI claims the fisherman drowned in knee-deep water. Sarkar had alleged that Pandher killed his daughter, and then CBI chief Vijay Shanker asked him to shut up about Pandher

HIS wife says she would just have to point to a fish in the clear waters of the Bhagirathi river in West Bengal's Murshidabad, and he would dive and get that very one for her.

Swimming was like breathing or walking to 45-year-old fisherman Jatin Sarkar. It was surprising then that he would drown in knee-deep water.

But that is what India's premier investigating agency CBI had claimed in the courts after Sarkar was found dead right on the paved banks of the Bhagirathi on September 1, 2007, just 10 days before he was to produce evidence before the Ghaziabad court against Moninder Singh Pandher regarding the murder of his 20-year-old daughter Pinki.

Pinki was raped, hacked to death, sliced up into pieces and the parts thrown into the nullah behind Pandher's D-5 bungalow in Noida's Nithari, in one of the grimmest crimes of recent history. Body parts of 18 minors and youngsters have been recovered so far.

Jatin's post-mortem report, exclusively available to MiD DAY, indicates he was murdered.

Jatin in his police statement had accused then CBI director Vijay Shanker of threatening him to drop charges against Pandher, and had said that Shanker along with CBI superintendent SJM Gilani and the then circle officer of the Noida police, Dinesh Yadav, would be responsible if he were killed. Even his wife Bandana testified saying she had seen Vijay Shanker, in a white Ambassador car, threatening Jatin in front of the Ghaziabad court days before the murder.

In its report 'Nandigram for Nithari' (March 4, 2008), MiD DAY had exposed investigating officers Deputy Superintendent of Police Santo Kumar Mitrau00a0 and Inspector Dilip Kumar Ganguly admitting that the CBI director was exerting "unbearable" pressure on the West Bengal police to suppress inquiry into Jatin's death. They said that in turn, Vijay Shanker had offered that CBI would not investigate the firing on Nandigram villagers by the state police. "Rubbish, lies," Vijay Shanker told MiD DAY on Tuesday. "No notice was ever issued to me, at least not that I know of."

Interestingly, after its investigations, the CBI booked the domestic help Surinder Singh Koli in all the murders but had given a clean chit to Pandher, in whose house a dozen-and-a-half young people were killed with gruesome relish. "We will say in court whatever we have to," said CBI lawyer Amarendra Sharan.

Jatin's post-mortem report says mud and sand were found in his throat, and nasal and respiratory tracts. "This could happen if somebody is holding your head down on the riverbed in shallow water, and you are forced to breathe in the mud while dying," said Sarkar's counsel BP Singh Dhakray.

The report also highlights signs of struggle like "the presence of weeds, stones etc" clutched in his hands. Stool had come out, and the urinary tract was found swollenu00a0which lawyers say never happens in simple drowning.
While the West Bengal police had submitted that Jatin was under the influence of alcohol when he drowned, the court's considered opinion report said "the person's stomach [had]u2026no specific smell of alcohol".

And then there is the mysterious disappearance of evidence. It is baffling that seasoned police officers did not collect and preserve among other things samples of Jatin's scalp hair, nail cuttings, scrapings of fingers, viscera and post-death blood for forensic examination.

In that light, chief judicial magistrate of Murshidabad Shantanu Jha's observations (he ordered a re-investigation by a new investigating officer) on November 11 is telling.

"The allegations of negligence in the matter of investigation should be viewed seriously particularly when it has been alleged that intentionally and motivatedly the investigating officer has not collected all the available materials only with a motive to protect the persons accused, since they are very influential people," he said in his order.