Chandigarh, August 3
A team of the Delhi police today looked for Haryana’s Inspector General of Police (Prisons), Mr Ravi Kant Sharma, at his residence at Panchkula in connection with the Shivani murder case but left after it failed to trace him.

When contacted by the TNS, Mr Aloke Joshi, IGP, Ambala range, under whose jurisdiction Panchkula falls, said that a team of the Delhi police led by Additional Commissioner of Police, Crime, Mr Hemant Chopra, today came to Panchkula looking for Mr Sharma. Not finding him, the police team recorded statements of those who were present in the house, Mr Joshi said.

Official sources said it appeared that he had got intimation in advance about the search, as yesterday he had applied for 10 days’ leave and had gone to an undisclosed place.

The three-hour search yielded nothing, the sources added. Mr R. K. Sharma, was said to have known Shivani, who had made a number of calls to him in Mumbai days before the murder.

The Delhi police, which told the Metropolitan Magistrate in the Capital that Mr R. K. Sharma had hatched a conspiracy to kill the journalist, sent one of its teams here in search of him but found that he had fled. The father of one of those arrested, Sri Bhagawan, had worked under Mr R. K. Sharma.

The Delhi police said no arrest warrant has been issued so far and the team had gone to Panchkula to question him in the case after his name was taken by the two arrested, Sri Bhagawan and Pradeep.

Pradeep in his statement had confessed of murdering Shivani along with his associates at the instance of Satya Prakash, a Gurgaon-based property dealer, who is yet to be arrested. After committing the murder he had stolen a camera from the flat of the journalist and passed it on to Satya Prakash.