Prisoner Meetoo made serious allegation, last week in Court, against notary Vinay Deelchand, presently detained in Beau-Bassin prison pending trial. He alleged that the notary met him with Hateem Oozeer and Khadafi Oozeer, two members of the “death squad” to contract him to poison Antoine Chetty’s meal with mercury against payment of Rs 5 million. The latter was at the time in the high security prison, La Bastille, in Phoenix and had become an embarrassment to Deelchand, Meetoo says.

Meetoo who was involved in the State Bank hold-up in Grand-Bois and is serving a prison term, declared that Deelchand and his two colleagues were threatening him and his family. This is why he had decided to relate everything in Court and ask for protection. The three men had allegedly met him in August in the Segregation Prisoners’ Unit, given him a flask of mercury and told him “one drop will be enough.” He had been promised Rs 500,000 to assault a prison warden. This would have ensured his transfer to La Bastille high security prison as punishment. If he had succeeded, he would have got Rs 4.5 million to be shared with Hateem and Khadafi Oozeer. The contract had not gone through but he had kept the mercury flask.

<B>Mercury traces confirmed</B>

The sitting magistrate, Prithiviraj Feknah, ordered an enquiry into the case and the flask was found and sent to the Forensic Science laboratory (FSL). Before the test results from the FSL, some prison officials didn’t seem to believe a single word of Meetoo’s story. “We are more and more inclined to believe that the whole story is fabricated.”

The Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) has now confirmed the presence of mercury in the flask, which could clear the doubts some prison officers had expressed about Meetoo, thought to be a “compulsive liar”.

On Vinay Deelchand’s side, the story has been denied. Siddharta Hawoldar, his lawyer, declared: “These are only rumours. The police have not yet contacted me.”

Antoine Chetty and his legal advisers have expressed no surprise at such a plot. “I’m not surprised, I know exactly how Vinay Deelchand works,” Chetty declared. His lawyers have declared that the presence of mercury on prison premises is “shocking.”

Though Antoine Chetty says he feels secure at Beau-Bassin prison where he is now under the constant protection of the Prison Security Squad, the investigators are seriously considering the possibility of transferring him to another prison.