Overview

• Suspended ASI Pankaj Sharma was arrested on September 14 in the federal probe into HPPCL chief engineer Vimal Negi’s death.
• Sharma’s bail plea was rejected and a court sent him to judicial custody until September 26 after an initial one-day CBI remand.
• Authorities accuse Sharma of concealing and formatting a pen drive recovered from Negi, which investigators consider crucial evidence.
• The CBI has registered abetment-to-suicide charges under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and continues to question witnesses and review records.
• Negi vanished on March 10 and was found dead on March 18, with the post-mortem indicating death around March 13, a gap that a criticized state SIT failed to explain before the High Court moved the case to the CBI on May 23.