Kanda makes cops sweat

A 'high profile' accused who simply refuses to cooperate with them, evidence which exists below their nose(s) but isn't recovered in time and a rapidly increasing number of untraceable 'suspects' have emerged as the chief features of the Delhi Police's investigations into Geetika Sharma's suicide. Jatin Anand and Karn Pratap Singh report.

A 'high profile' accused who simply refuses to cooperate with them, evidence which exists below their nose(s) but isn't recovered in time and a rapidly increasing number of untraceable 'suspects' have emerged as the chief features of the Delhi Police's investigations into Geetika Sharma's suicide.

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A day after investigators said they would fight tooth and nail to secure Chaddha's custody and confront her with Kanda to identify the 'inconsistencies in their statements', a Delhi court dismissed the Delhi Police's plea.

While Kanda's arrest is not yielding the desired results, the police now claim to be on the trail of Ankita Singh, considered 'another one' of Kanda's close associates. According to P. Karunakaran, DCP (northwest), the police are even mulling a brain-mapping test to try and wean information from him.

"A team has already visited Goa, to trace and question Singh, who is said to be manager of his Mint Casino Company, and is close to him. We believe she can shed some light on his relationship and a team is being despatched to Satna in Madhya Pradesh to track her," the officer said.

Sources, however, said Singh may have already fled the country and could be in Singapore. In 2009, Geetika, who was sent to Goa to manage the same establishment, police said, had lodged a criminal case against Singh and Nupur Mehta, Kanda's associate.

One of three specially-constituted police teams, after having raided the office of ex-Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda's now defunct MDLR Airlines office in adjacent Gurgaon a day earlier, had to seek the help of 'cyber experts' to unearth two hard disk drives, allegedly stowed-away in the same premises, on Monday.

"Aruna Chaddha and Geetika used to sit in the same room," a source claimed. "One of the recovered disks had been detached from Chaddha's office computer while the other had been removed from Geetika's."

Police, in an evident face-saving submission to a city court, claimed that they now had access to a computer-based file containing documents which Chaddha, on orders from Kanda, was forcing Geetika to put her signature on.

Meanwhile, on the second day of his interrogation, a composed Kanda refused to crack and continued to evade his interrogators' queries with seeming ease. Left with no other alternative to 'get to him', sources close to him claimed, Kanda is now being subjected to 'various degrees of physical hardship'.