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R K Sharma has fled the country: Prosecutor

In a fresh twist in the hunt for Ravi Kant Sharma, prime suspect in the journalist Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, the police on Monday said he has fled the country as the Delhi high court reserved its order on his bail plea.

"I certainly know he [Sharma] is not in India," Special Public Prosecutor S K Saxena told Justice M A Khan hearing the bail application.

The prosecutor made a strong plea for dismissal of Sharma's anticipatory bail petition. Justice Khan reserved the order without specifying the date for pronouncement after completion of the arguments that stretched for three days.

Sharma's counsel Dinesh Mathur claimed there was no material with the police to show his complicity in the crime.

Saxena said the police wrote to the Haryana government on August three after the arrest of co-accused Shri Bhagwan and Pradeep requesting it to direct Sharma to join the investigation, but 'he went on 10 days leave without giving his address in the leave application which was necessary'.

Giving a new twist to the case about the 'motive' behind the murder, he said the police had recovered certain 'sensitive' documents from the house of the slain journalist, which were passed on to her by Sharma when he was an Officer on Special Duty at the PMO.

"When she started threatening him about those secret official documents that she will spoil his career, it had become a question of survival for the petitioner," Saxena claimed.

After the completion of the arguments, the prosecutor handed over a 'sealed cover' purportedly containing those 'documents' to the judge, who opened it, read it and merely said, "They are like any other papers."

Advocate Ashok Arora, appearing on behalf of Shivani's husband Rakesh Bhatnagar, took strong exception to defence counsel's repeated reference to police theory of 'illicit relations' between Sharma and the deceased, saying court should not take note of such arguments which are 'insensitive to their child and the husband as well'. The court however asked him to sit down saying he had no locus standi in the case.

Dinesh Mathur gave details of the number of times his client R K Sharma cooperated in the investigations in 1999.

"He was interrogated on 12 occasions in 1999, and twice underwent a polygraph test," he said.

Mathur said till 2002 there was no mention of Sri Bhagwan, Pradeep Kumar and Satya Prakash, the three accused who have been arrested for their alleged role in the murder.

He asked why the prosecution was insisting for custodial interrogation of the accused when no recoveries have so far been made.

With inputs from Onkar Singh in New Delhi

Shivani Bhatnagar murder case: Complete coverage

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