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Sharma gave Shivani St Kitts case documents: Police

Senior Indian Police Service officer Ravi Kant Sharma, the prime accused in the Indian Express journalist Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, had allegedly supplied her with many sensitive documents including some related to the St Kitts forgery case, according to the Delhi police.

The police charge sheet alleged the Haryana cadre police officer had given Shivani papers pertaining to 'verifications' into the controversy surrounding alleged bank account of Ajeya Singh, son of former prime minister V P Singh, in connection with the St Kitts case.

He had also given Shivani some papers relating to Jammu and Kashmir, the charge sheet alleged.

Shivani was found murdered in her East Delhi apartment on January 23, 1999.

Piecing together the evidence collected in the course of investigations, the charge sheet said Shivani had confided her alleged relationship with Sharma to her sister Sevanti and Saijal Shah, her roommate in London, where she was on a scholarship.

Recreating the 'plot', the 45-page charge sheet said the conspiracy to eliminate Shivani was hatched sometime between December 1998 and May 1999 at Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune and other places.

On December 24, 1998, Sharma met co-accused Satya Prakash, Sri Bhagwan, Ved Prakash Sharma and Ved alias Kalu at the Ashoka Hotel in Delhi.

In order to create alibi, Sharma arranged an official meeting with a senior government official, police alleged, adding the meeting, however, did not take place.

Satya Prakash hired Pradeep with the promise to get back his job in the Haryana Urban Development Corporation, besides a remuneration of Rs 300,000, it added.

On January 13, 1999 Sharma called Shivani at the Ashoka Hotel, along with her child, so as to permit the other accused to identify her. Later they went to the Navkunj Apartments in East Delhi where she stayed, so that her residence could be known to the killers.

Listing details of the telephone calls between the deceased journalist and Sharma, the charge sheet said that Shivani had made as many as 50 calls to the senior IPS officer from her Delhi residence between December 17, 1997 and February 24, 1998 alone.

Sharma even used the mobile phone of one of his daughters to contact co-accused Sri Bhagwan, it said.

Substantiating allegations of their relationship, the charge sheet quoted the deceased's sister Sevanti as saying that Shivani was looking depressed, dejected and perturbed in the first week of January 1999. Shivani also confided to Sevanti that Sharma was avoiding her, the charge sheet said.

Though Pradeep was paid an advance amount of Rs 10,000 the rest of the promised sum was paid after the execution of the crime.

A day after the crime, accused Satya Prakash, Sri Bhagwan and Ved Sharma reached Mumbai on January 24 and stayed at Hotel Milan, Santa Cruz, Mumbai where they took delivery of the Rs 300,000 from R K Sharma, it added.

Charging Pradeep with the substantive offence of murder, the charge sheet also rebutted theories of the presence of a second killer on the fatal day.

Shivani Bhatnagar murder case: Complete coverage

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