MUMBAI: The fear of facing interrogation by CBI officials was so strong that it killed V S Thakur, owner of Atharva Printing Press in Pune on Sunday. Fifty-three-year-old Thakur, a co-accused in the Indian Navy's lower division clerk (LDC) paper leak case, suffered a massive heart attack 100 metres away from his office where the CBI sleuths were waiting for him.
The all- India exam to fill 175 clerks' posts at the Western Naval Command HQ was conducted by the Navy on Sunday although the paper had been leaked a day earlier. However, by Saturday, the CBI had arrested four persons—R C Naik and D S Murthy, administrative officers of the Western and Eastern Naval Command, Ranbir Singh Rawat, former Navy sailor and current owner of a defence recruitment agency, Manasa International, and Haryana-based teacher Hoshiar Singh Rawat.
The CBI had also raided United Lodge near Crawford Market in Mumbai, where 138 candidates were being dictated the question paper and the correct answers. While questioning the accused on Saturday, the CBI learnt that the exam paper had been leaked from Atharva Printing Press, and on Sunday a team went to Sinhgarh Road in Pune where the press was located. "Since it was shut, we called up Thakur and asked him to come there," said a CB officer.
