Transporter dies mysteriously on police stn campus

WHAT HAPPENED? Driver alleges he died due to cops’ harassment, but police claim he had a heart attack while walking to police station

A city transporter died mysteriously on the Sarojini Nagar police station campus on Tuesday afternoon after he was called there for interrogation in a fraud case. The deceased’s driver alleged that he died due to cops’ harassment but police officials claimed that he suffered a heart attack while walking down to the police station campus and died while being taken to the community health centre (CHC) of Sarojini Nagar.

The deceased, Rajiv Chaturvedi, 55 used to manage multiple businesses as transporter and had also remained associated with some newspapers in the past. His driver, Salahi said he was called at the Sarojini Nagar police station regarding an FIR lodged against him on November 1. One Bihari Lal Gupta of Baghpat had lodged the FIR alleging that Chaturvedi duped him of `20 lakh assuring him allotment of a liquor shop contract.

Gupta alleged that he had given ` 25 lakh to him in 2010 for the contract. He said Chaturvedi had returned `5 lakh after much persuasion and was not returning the remaining amount.

He alleged that the transporter even threatened him with dire consequences.

The deceased’s driver said he dropped him outside the police station around 2pm and found his mobile phone switched off when he started calling him after an hour. When Salahi called up station officer of Sarojini Nagar Sudhir Kumar, he found that Chaturvedi was in the CHC and found him dead when he reached there.

SSP Rajesh Pandey said Chaturvedi had fallen on the ground while walking down to the police station and was rushed to the CHC by locals. He said the doctors declared him dead in the CHC and raised apprehension of death due to heart attack.

He said he never went inside the police station so there was no possibility of police harassment.