Pooja Chavan suicide case: Pune police say ‘no denying’ audio clips on woman’s phone belong to ex-Maharashtra minister Sanjay Rathod

There is “no denying” that audio clips forensically retrieved from the mobile phone of Pune student Pooja Chavan, who died by suicide on February 7, were conversations between the 22-year-old woman and former Maharashtra cabinet minister Sanjay Rathod, a senior Pune police official said Monday.

“No one is denying that the voices do not belong to Chavan and Rathod,” an official said Monday.

Pune police sources also confirmed Monday for the first time that the voices on a dozen audio clips circulated publicly after Chavan’s suicide, had been forensically “matched with the voice samples of Sanjay Rathod, his aide Arun Rathod and Chavan”.

A Shiv Sena MLA from Digras in Yavatmal district, Rathod had resigned as the state’s forest minister on February 28 after he came under the scanner for Chavan’s death on February 7. There were allegations that Rathod was in a relationship with Chavan, both of whom hail from the tribal Banjara community.

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Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Devendra Fadnavis had written to the state DGP alleging that the Pune Police was investigating the case only superficially. The BJP leader had sent to the DGP the 12 audio clips that were parts of phone conversations purportedly between Sanjay Rathod and Arun Rathod, and between the Sena MLA and Chavan.

Police said they recently received forensic reports confirming the authenticity of the clips.

Most of the leaked conversations were between two men, who were discussing a woman who had agreed to undergo “treatment” and was apparently suicidal, police said. In one conversation, a man is purportedly heard asking another to break open the door and get hold of her phone quickly, police said.

Police Commissioner Amitabh Gupta refused to comment.