<b>Gold biscuits’ case accused dies

Gold biscuits’ case accused dies Friday, May 18, 2001

Ahmedabad, May 17: The main accused in the missing gold biscuits case, Devang Shah, died mysteriously on Thursday morning at 8.30 am leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions and numerous possibilities.
Rumours of Shah having committed suicide floated around and only after the post-mortem report comes out can the mystery be solved.

The possibility of foul play was also not ruled out. Commissioner of police P C Pande said that the sequence of events is still not clear to him. “Why should Shah commit suicide when he had already delivered all the gold and the silver to Guru Exports, a sister concern of K L Choksi company and also had the delivery challans for proof,” he asked. “Also he couldn’t have died of a cardiac arrest caused due to the poison he had taken on May 6,” said Mr Pande.

He felt that a conclusion of the cause of Shah’s death could only be made after the post-mortem report arrived. According to Dr Roopkumar Aggrawal, who was treating Shah at Chandramani Hospital, Shahibaug, the latter died of a cardiac arrest.

“But he said that it was a sudden death, since when Shah was checked at 3.00 am by the doctor he was in good health then and also when the nurse checked him at 5.00 am.” But by 6.00 am, a relative who was with him, asked the doctor to check him again since he went into a cardiac arrest. The doctors tried to revive him and his heart did response for a brief period but he finally breathed his last at 8.30 am.

Dr Aggrawal said that Mr Shah had developed Hepatitis and pancreatitics since the past three days. Dr Aggrawal added that Shah had also developed an electrolyte imbalance which he felt had resulted in the cardiac arrest.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that Navrangpura police had taken Shah for interrogation for an hour on Wednesday and brought him back. They were to arrest him on Thursday morning and take him into custody.

During interrogation, Shah revealed that he was verbally told by a junior official of State Bank of India, overseas branch, to send the gold biscuits and the 39 tonnes of silver which arrived at the airport to Guru Exports and he had done so. But Pande felt that if Shah was in the clear and had delivered the consignment he had no need to commit suicide or to feel stressed out which could result in his cardiac arrest.

It might be recalled that Shah had tried to commit suicide by taking poison and cut his wrists on May 6 after more than 1000 gold biscuits went missing from the vaults of B V C Travel Agency where he was the branch manager. Gold and silver from the United Bank of Switzerland via the Mat company had arrived at Ahmedabad airport and was to be delivered by B V C Travel Agency to the respective company according to the directives of the State Bank of India Overseas Branch.

Any directives given by SBI had to be given in writing as a delivery order but Shah had said that he got only verbal orders and had delivered the consignment to Guru Exports.

Mr Pande found it incredible that a bank like SBI could function for such large consignments on verbal instructions. Police has also questioned SBI officials, who have denied giving Mr Shah any verbal instructions on gold and the silver.

Mr Pande said that since the gold and silver, which went missing was huge in quantity, it just couldn’t disappear and would be traceable sooner or later. But of course the question remains that though the consignment was delivered to Guru Exports, who had asked Mr Shah to send it?

Or did Shah do it on his own. So then why Shah feel the need to commit suicide in the first place when he was not involved in the fraud. All these questions could have been answered only by Shah but now all this remains a remote possiblity.
News Source : The AsianAge Ahmedabad Edition [ The coolest Newspaper for city ]

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