Raja's associate dies in mysterious circumstances

Chennai, Mar 16 (PTI) In a sensational twist to the 2G
spectrum scam, Sadiq Batcha, businessman and a close aide of
former Indian Telecom Minister A Raja, Wednesday allegedly
committed suicide in mysterious circumstances and his wife
claimed that he did it "unable to cope with the pressure" of
the probe.
38-year-old Batcha, who was the Managing Director
of Greenhouse Promoters, a firm under the scanner of the
Central Bureau of Investigation as well as the Enforcement
Directorate in connection with the spectrum allocation scam,
was said to have been found hanging from the roof of the
bedroom of his house in Teynampet in the capital of southern
state of Tamil Nadu here by his wife Rekha Banu and his driver
around 1300 hours.
Batcha, whose official and residential premises were
raided by CBI and questioned at least four times in the last
two months, had left a suicide note in which he had stated
that he was "embarrassed" by the raids and the extensive media
coverage of them, police sources said late on Wednesday night.
In the note recovered from his diary, Batcha is also
said to have remarked that Raja is a "good human being".
As the news of his death spread, Dravida Munnettra
Kazhagam part's detractors suspected foul play in the death of
Batcha with one of them saying he could have been "bumped off"
because he "knew too much".
Apparently because of the questions raised over his
death that has caused a political storm, Tamil Nadu government
decided to transfer the case of suicide to CBI in view of the
fact that the agency had questioned him in the 2G scam.
The two rushed him to Apollo Hospital where doctors
declared him "brought dead".
"At about 1.20 PM Sadiq Batch was brought to Apollo
Hospital by his wife. Doctors declared him brought dead to
the Apollo hospital. The family says he had hanged himself,"
Chennai Police Commissioner T Rajendran told reporters.
The body has been taken to Government Royapettah
Hospital for post mortem, he said but declined to get into the
issue whether it could be a case of murder. The post mortem
will be done Thursday.
"I won't speculate on that," he said when asked
whether it could be a case of murder.
Police have registered a case and was conducting an
inquest under Sec 174 of the Criminal Procedure Code that
deals with unnatural death.
Bhanu, accompanied by a relative, drove to Teynampet
police station in the evening and filed a complaint, the
details of which were not not released.
While she avoided the waiting media, a senior police
official said on condition of anonymity that Bhanu said in her
complaint that she and her driver had seen Batcha's body
hanging from the roof in the bedroom of their house.
"He (Batcha) could not not cope with the pressure of
the probe," the official said quoting from his wife's
statement.