Bhopal: Controversy surrounding use of Chinese parts in Dhanush, India’s first indigenous long-range artillery gun, being manufactured in Gun Carriage Factory (GCF), Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, on Wednesday took a new turn with an GCF officer interrogated in the matter by CBI earlier, found “murdered”.
Post-mortem of junior works manager of GCF, Jabalpur, Sharada Charan Khatua whose body was recovered in a jungle barely around 300 meters from the factory site on Tuesday, suggested that he might have been killed with sharp weapons, Jabalpur district SP Amit Kumar said on Wednesday.
“There was a deep injury mark in the head suggesting that he might have been attacked with a sharp weapon. Besides, injury marks in some other parts of the body have also been found in the post-mortem”, he added. The body was found to be 12-15 days old, police said. “The suicide case registered in the case earlier has now been converted to murder case following the post-mortem report”, a senior police officer of Jabalpur told this newspaper. A special investigation team (SIT) by Jabalpur police has been constituted to probe the murder case.
“We are going to seek details from the CBI team probing the incident as to who were on their radar in the matter. We are not intending to interfere in the ongoing CBI probe into the case. But, we will do our separate investigation into the death”, he added. The deceased was questioned by a team of CBI officers on January 10 in connection with the controversy and his cell phone was seized by the sleuths of the CBI, according to Mr Kumar.
Later, the deceased had gone missing on January 17. A missing case had been filed by the widow of the GCF officer on the same night. His body was recovered on February five.
In June, 2017, CBI lodged an FIR against a Delhi-based company and unidentified officers of GCF, following inputs that China-made parts were masked as “Made in Germany” and supplied to GCF for manufacturing Dhanush.
