A CRY FOR HELP

BPCL CHAIRMAN’S SISTER SAYS SOME OUT TO GRAB PROPERTY

DIAL MEDIA

By Manuwant Choudhary

Cries for help from a locked apartment in Patna’s Harihar Complex alarms residents who dial MEDIA for help and for five days the media try to rescue the woman but with no success.
On Republic Day a few mediapersons decide its high time to free this woman but when they arrive at the apartment its found open and a servant cleans the apartment. As we question the servant Raju, two men appear…one of them says he is Mithilesh Kumar – the caretaker of Anubha Sinha and a distant relative. We ask her why Anubha was kept locked in this apartment and he says, “No, we have not locked her up…she has a mental problem so we are concerned that she does not loiter around the streets and she always has a servant to take care of her. But its true her servant was sent to prison for three months for assaulting Anubha.”
We ask Mr. Mithilesh, a contractor, to take us to Anubha Sinha and he says, “Anubha has gone out and will be back only by evening.” We persist and he says, “If you trouble us so much then we will not look after her.”
40-year-old Anubha Sinha we are told is the only daughter of the late IAS U.N. Sinha and she is married to Dr. Sudheer Sinha who is in the United States of America. Mr. Mithilesh informs us that she is a divorcee. Besides, her brother Mr. Ashok Sinha is the chairman and managing director of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited based in Bombay.
We ask Mr. Mithilesh for the chairman’s telephone number and after much uneasiness he gives us a cell number. When we dial the number we are told it’s a wrong number.
So we tell Mr. Mithilesh that all we want is to meet Mrs. Anubha Sinha and we are promised that by evening a meeting will be arranged.
Mr. Mithilesh then disappears and returns with a lawyer Rashid who attempts at explaining Mrs. Anubha Sinha being a schizophrenic. We ask him for the medical records and also a meeting with Anubha Sinha’s only minor daughter Anuja Smriti. The lawyer says that he could convince Mr. Mithilesh for the meeting with Mrs. Anubha only if we agree to see the court cases, medical records, meet Anuja and then finally Mrs. Anubha in that order. We agree.
We wait and wait but no one appears. For eight hours we stand outside this apartment building and no resident even questions us why we are here. Perhaps, they all know.
The local Buddh Colony police don’t come even after repeated calls to the inspector.
Flat no.42 is where Mr. Mithilesh lives with his wife Shanti and their son and his three room rented apartment is also used as a girls hostel.
The flat has two entrances, the front entrance had a lock while inmates use a side-entrance and for the full day we ring the door bell and knock the door but no one opens, though voices can be heard inside.
The lawyer re-appears and says that the interview will be arranged tomorrow morning.
So when its 9 p.m. we dial 100 for help and a police team arrives after orders from senior police officers and we go to flat no. 42.
We find the front door is unlocked and when we knock the door Mrs. Shanti Sinha appears. On being questioned by the police where Mrs. Anubha Sinha is she replies, “She lives in Raja Bazaar area not here. K.K. Singh, the local police officer, knows everything.”
Police ask her where Mrs. Anubha Sinha’s daughter lives and she says she’s inside. The daughter Anuja comes out of the apartment and says, “My mother does not live here. She stays at the Raja Bazaar Apartment.”
When we ask her when was the last time you saw your mother she replies, “I have not seen her since two years. She’s mad.”
But we insist that the police check this apartment before we proceed to Raja Bazaar and we agree that only the police will enter the apartment.
Anuja insists that we check the Raja Bazaar apartment first and then come back. We persist.
Two cops enter and for 20 minutes the door remains shut and its only after much knocking, the door opens again. The police announce, “Mrs. Anubha Sinha is inside this flat.”
All this while there is no sign of Mr. Mithilesh.
We get to interview Mrs. Anubha Sinha. We find her very covered, her neck never straight, a little drowsy sitting on a bed in a terrace converted room but she could speak quite clearly. On being asked whether she called for help she replied, “Yes, I do call for help when I am unwell.”
Mrs. Anubha on being asked whether she is mad she says, “I am not mad.”
Do you face any threat to your life? “No, I am safe and I can walk anywhere, go anywhere…but there are some people very close to me who are eyeing my property…Unkee aankh meree property par hai….I will not name anyone now but some day later.”
Anubha Sinha needs help and from what we saw of her she is not in a position to even walk. Shanti Sinha gave police the telephone number (09820168255) of BPCL chairman Ashok Sinha but when we tried to get to him we were told it’s the wrong number.
Later today at 2.30 p.m. Aaj Tak gets a telephone call from cell no. 09810978445 the man claiming he is Mr. Ashok Sinha, CMD of BPCL and brother of Anubha Sinha, who said, "Yes, she is my sister and she has a mental problem."
When we asked him why he does not get proper medical help to his sister he replies, "You should serve the nation and not interfere with my private life. Everyone knows my problems."
When asked his sister has said people are eyeing her property he replied, "You may be eyeing her property!."