NEW DELHI, 28 September — A senior police officer, the prime suspect in a politically controversial murder of a woman journalist, surrendered yesterday before a court in the northern state of Haryana, his daughter told reporters yesterday.
Ravi Kant Sharma, inspector general of prisons in Haryana, was on the run for more than a month after police sought to arrest him in connection with the 1999 murder of journalist Shivani Bhatnagar.
Sharma surrendered before Sarita Gupta, chief judicial magistrate in Ambala who sent him to judicial custody until Oct. 10. It was not clear why Sharma had gone to Ambala to surrender.
Sharma, who had gone on a 10-day leave on Aug. 2 after another suspect in the case was arrested, did not report to work since then. The case became controversial when Sharma’s wife openly accused Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan of having had a hand in the murder.
Sharma is India’s first top policeman to be charged while in office for first-degree murder, punishable by death.
The police have accused him and four others of the murder.
A court in Sharma’s hometown of Panchkula had earlier rejected his appeals for anticipatory bail, which would have allowed him to surrender to a court without first being arrested.
Police claim Bhatnagar was strangled to death because she had allegedly been pestering Sharma to marry her.
