Vyapam scam: Rajnath rules out CBI probe

Bhopal/New Delhi: The Union government on Monday rejected calls for a CBI probe into the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh, even as a police trainee recruited through Vyapam was found dead in Sagar district. The Congress, the AAP and the CPI-M stepped up attacks on the Central and Madhya Pradesh governments over the rising number of deaths in the recruitment scandal.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, however, insisted that every death cannot be linked to the scam. The trainee woman police sub-inspector, Anamika Kushwaha, became the third alleged victim of the Vyapam scam since Saturday.

On Sunday, Arun Sharma, dean of the Netaji Subhas Chandra Medical College at Jabalpur, who was connected with the probe into the scandal, was found dead in a hotel room near Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport. A day earlier, television journalist Akshay Singh died dramatically in Jhabua in Madhya Pradesh soon after interviewing the family of one of the accused in the scam who had died.

Chief Minister Chouhan, under pressure from the opposition to quit, said that while every death was sad, "it is not fair to link every death to Vyapam". As many as 48 people associated with the admission and recruitment racket in Vyapam have died since 2013 -- either in mysterious circumstances or have committed suicide.

Union minister Uma Bharti said on Monday she was scared by the number of deaths associated with the Vyapam scam in Madhya Pradesh."There is panic in Madhya Pradesh due to the deaths. I am scared for the lives of people connected to me. I am a minister, but still I am scared. I will convey my fears to Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan," Uma Bharti, the water resources minister, told an English news channel