Indian test-rigging scandal has taken a deadly turn
During the past two years, more than two dozen people implicated in a US$1 billion test-rigging scheme have met with mysterious deaths.
Even by standards in India, where corruption is routine, the scale of the scam in the central state of Madhya Pradesh is mind-boggling. Police say that since 2007, tens of thousands of students and job aspirants have paid hefty bribes to middlemen, bureaucrats and politicians to rig test results for medical schools and government jobs.
So far, 1,930 people have been arrested and more than 500 are on the run. Hundreds of medical students are in prison - along with several bureaucrats and the state's education minister. Even the governor has been implicated.
Police have had their hands full racing to meet a July deadline in the criminal probe. And now they are faced with the deaths of more witnesses and suspects. In the past week, police said, one of those accused died after having chest pains in prison, another drowned in a village pond and a third died of a liver infection.
On Saturday, television reporter Akshay Singh died while investigating a suspect's death. Singh sipped tea during an interview and began coughing and foaming at the mouth, according to media reports. He was rushed to the hospital, where doctors said he had suffered a heart attack. Police said the initial examination did not reveal anything "suspicious".
The state's government, run by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has said that "no conspiracy was found" in the recent deaths. But others involved in the case fear otherwise. The state's chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, said on Sunday that his mind was in "agony and pain" and promised that all the deaths would be investigated.