New Delhi, October 5
Mrs Madhu Sharma, wife of Ravi Kant Sharma, prime suspect in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, today accused the Delhi police of “severely torturing” her husband in custody and deliberately leaking out false reports of his reported confession.
An agitated Mrs Madhu Sharma told reporters outside the Adarsh Nagar police station where he was being interrogated that her husband’s lawyers informed her that Ravi Kant Sharma was not able to speak and appeared extremely weak. “This means the police have been continuously torturing him,” she added.
Armed with a court order, which allowed a meeting with her husband, she claimed that she had not been allowed to meet her husband for the past 72 hours. Threatening to sit on an “indefinite dharna” she said she does not believe that Ravi Kant had confessed to the murder.
She was reacting to news reports in a section of the Press that Ravi Kant had finally broken down and had confessed to have commissioned the murder of the Indian Express journalist to save the honour of his family.
She told the media, “let me go and ask (Ravi Kant). I know what confessions the Delhi police plant”. Mrs Madhu Sharma also alleged that the case diaries of the murder case had been destroyed and new case diaries had been written to falsely implicate her husband.
She was, however, later allowed to meet her husband, though the daughters, Pragati and Komal, were barred from meeting their father.
Meanwhile, Mr U.K. Katna, Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, refused to either deny or confirm if the suspended senior IPS officer of the Haryana cadre had confessed to his involvement in the murder. He said the interrogation was continuing on the right lines.
He also refused to divulge if the other two suspects in police custody, Ved Prakash, alias Kallu, and Ved Prakash Sharma had confronted Ravi Kant Sharma. However, sources said a team had left for Mumbai to record the statement of Mukand Dar, who used to be Ravi Kant’s secretary when he was posted as the Chief Vigilance Officer of Air India. The police had indicated that his secretary was aware of the details of his telephone calls to some of the suspects arrested in the case.
