Death list in NRHM scam swells to five after medical officer is killed in car crash



By Rajat Rai

The Deputy chief medical officer of Varanasi, who was questioned by the CBI in connection with the NRHM scam in Uttar Pradesh, has died under mysterious circumstances in Varanasi.



Shailesh Yadav died in what the police claimed was a road accident but eyewitness accounts tell a different story altogether.



The timing of the accident has also raised eyebrows. Yadav was grilled by the CBI in connection with the `5,700-crore scam on Friday. On his way back to the Pindra health centre, to which Yadav was attached, he rammed his car into a stationary trailer parked on the roadside near a dhaba in the Babatpur area of Varanasi, the police said.



Anant Kumar Mishra (left) and Babu Singh Kushwaha were UP ministers linked to the NRHM scam



He was rushed to a nearby private hospital by the locals where the deputy CMO succumbed to his injuries.

Eyewitness accounts of the accident are in complete contrast with that of the police. They say the trailer hit Yadav's car while he was trying to overtake the vehicle.



'Yadav's car was dragged by the trailer for a good 300 metres before the locals chased the vehicle and brought it to a halt. The driver and the cleaner managed to escape after which we took him to the hospital,' Vinod Rai, a local, said.



Intriguingly, two of Yadav's subordinates also died the same day, those too in a road accident.



As soon as the news reached the Pindara health centre, some staff left for the hospital where Yadav was admitted in an autorickshaw.



'The three-wheeler overturned in the Harrauwa locality and two nurses Shivkumari, 50 and Savitri, 55, died on the spot. Three other employees of the health centre sustained injuries and are being treated at a private hospital,' DIG, Varanasi, Ram Kumar said.



Yadav is the fifth person, associated with the NRHM scam, to have died. Before him, two chief medical officers - Vinod Arya and B.P. Singh - were shot dead and deputy CMO Y.S. Sachan died mysteriously in the hospital attached to the Lucknow central jail.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati

Then Sunil Verma, an NRHM project manager with the Construction and Design Services (CDS), shot himself with his licensed revolver at his residence in Vikasnagar, Lucknow.



After the scam surfaced, Mayawati had sacked health minister Anant Kumar Mishra and family welfare minister Babu Singh Kushwaha.



The CBI had arrested Abhay Vajpayee, director in UP health services, G. Ram, retired director general of health services, and Saurabh Jain, managing director of two medicine companies in Moradabad, in January. They are on judicial remand on the orders of the Sepcial CBI court in Ghaziabad.



Apart from the top officials in the medical and health department, the CBI is also questioning the CMOs of 72 districts from where the irregularities in NRHM funds have been reported.



Both Kushwaha and Mishra have also been questioned by the CBI. The scam has its roots in the division of the health ministry by Mayawati in 2010 when she crowned Kushwaha the family welfare minister, cutting Mishra to size. It was Kushwaha who created the post of chief medical officer-family welfare to implement the NRHM schemes in the state.



The scandal came to light after Arya and Singh were murdered in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The CAG report blames the state's health and family welfare department functionaries, middlemen and contractors for guzzling `5,700 crore of the `8,657 crore released between 2005 and 2011 under the NRHM.



