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Twists and turns in a sordid case

"It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key," to use a Churchillian description. A cocktail of theories has been served up following the `drug and booze party' that killed Bibek Moitra and hospitalised Rahul Mahajan, the personal secretary and son respectively of Pramod Mahajan. The twists and turns in the case — dramatic participant accounts, conflicting pathological laboratory findings, a heroin-positive forensic hint, allegations of poisoning, and speculation about dark conspiracies — have made it difficult to form a picture of what happened. As in Rashomon, Akira Kurosowa's brilliant philosophical film made in 1950, perspective seems to distort reality; and different narrators tell different stories. First, according to eyewitness accounts given to a television channel and then to the police by three of the four young men who visited 7 Safdarjung Road on the night of June 1, Moitra and Mahajan asked to be supplied with some narcotic "stuff"; Sahil [Zaroo], the fixer, procured a packet of "cocaine" from a dealer in the Vasant Vihar area for Rs.15,000; and an already intoxicated Mahajan, Moitra, and Sahil took dangerously ill after snorting the stuff. Next Apollo Hospital, Delhi, which treated Mahajan, announced that he was tested for 14 drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and ecstasy, and the results "turned out to be negative"; and then, in a volte-face, revealed that while the hospital's had been a "qualitative" exercise, quantitative tests done independently by a well-known pathological laboratory on Mahajan's urine sample found traces of a "cocktail of drugs," including cocaine. An initial report from the Central Science Forensic Laboratory (leaked to the news media) suggested that the `white powdery substance' recovered from Moitra's trouser pocket contained heroin — and the forensic findings will be crucial to how the story develops. Then Zaroo, following his surrender to the police in Srinagar, claimed he had no role in procuring any narcotic drug but fell "victim" to circumstances when he tried out "some white powder" at the Mahajan residence and became badly ill. Meanwhile, the police have let it out that they have picked up several persons, "including some Nigerians," for questioning in connection with suspected drug peddling and their possible links to Moitra & Mahajan. Through all this, Mahajan's close relative and Maharashtra BJP leader, Gopinath Munde, has maintained that an innocent Rahul was "poisoned." One thing is clear: this is a sordid story, revolving round life styles lived at the edge of the law.

With television-bite-driven journalism setting the terms, doctors and lawyers have spoken contradictorily and out of turn rather than leaving the central facts of a criminal case to where they belong — the ongoing police investigation. Whether it was cocaine or heroin or a `cocktail of drugs' that killed Moitra, took Mahajan close to death, and made Zaroo ill, l'affaire 7 Safdarjung Road should serve as a grim warning against the growing problem of drug abuse. India has become a transit route for drug traffickers, who smuggle heroin from the opium producing areas of Afghanistan and Myanmar, to other parts of the world. In 2004, a baseline study titled `The Extent, Pattern and Trends of Drug Abuse in India', conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Ministry of Social Justice, estimated there were 8.75 million users of cannabis, 2.04 million users of opiates such as heroin, and 0.29 million users of sedatives. The Delhi police, who have registered a case under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, must show no politically inspired softness, not to mention partiality, while investigating the case. Mahajan was tipped to become his murdered father's political heir and a leader of the BJP's youth wing. The country will be watching to ensure that the same tough law enforcement standards that apply to Zaroo, the three other young men who accompanied him to 7 Safdarjung Road, and the drug dealers are used to investigate and, if the investigation finds cause, to prosecute Mahajan. Perhaps the key to the riddle wrapped in a mystery inside the enigma will be available soon.

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