Names of several influential people and politicians of west Uttar Pradesh are likely to emerge as the investigation progresses.
LUCKNOW: The mysterious disappearance of Kavita Chaudhury, a lecturer at the Chaudhry Charan Singh University of Meerut, has become a cause of embarrassment for the Mulayam Singh government, as names of two UP ministers have popped up in the murky episode. Names of several influential people and politicians of west Uttar Pradesh are likely to emerge as the investigation progresses.
The lecturer, in her early thirties, went missing after she left Meerut for her home in Bulandshahr on October 22. Two months later, on Sunday, Ravindra Pradhan, one of the four accused in the case, was arrested from Noida. Pradhan, a local mafia in Bulandshahr, is learnt to be close to the basic education minister Kiran Pal Singh, Samajwadi Party MLA from Agauta in Bulandshahr district. Meanwhile, the Meerut police are trying to make sure if the body of a woman found near Baghpat near Meerut on December 1 is actually Kavita's. "The body is of a woman of the same age group, and her face bears a striking resemblance to Kavita's," Meerut SSP, Navneet Sikera said.
The police have recovered a letter from Kavita's room in the Indira Girls' Hostel in Meerut in which she wrote that Pradhan had threatened her number of times and that she feared that he might actually kill her.
Another minister, whose name has figured in the episode, is Chaudhry Babulal, an MLA of the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) and food processing minister in the Mulayam government. Kavita's mobile phone records show that Babulal was frequently in touch with her and, in fact, spoke to her as many as 57 times over eight days before she disappeared.
However, the minister denied that he knew Kavita intimately. "I knew Kavita only because she had approached me for her transfer from Meerut to Agra," he said on Sunday. He said he did not know of her whereabouts and that he had come to know about her disappearance only through media reports.
The other minister, Kiran Pal Singh, parroting a similar tune, has demanded a CBI inquiry into the entire incident. He said that Ravindra Pradhan was known to him only because he hailed from the same area. The media had falsely stated that another accused, Trilok Chandra, was his nephew, he added.
Kavita's brother, Satish Pal, has alleged that the police was slow to take any action as influential leaders were involved in the case. However, Meerut SSP Navneet Sikera told DNA that the police are "not compromising its actions in any way". He said it was because of the mounting pressure on the accused that Ravindra Pradhan surrendered. "The others would be arrested soon," he added. Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav also assured of action against the guilty.
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