SOUTH AFRICA CARJACK MURDER: SHRIEN DEWANI DENIES LINK TO 2ND MURDER RIDDLE
ABOVE: Shrien Dewani is being investigated over links to a second killing
HONEYMOON murder suspect Shrien Dewani is being investigated over links to a second killing.
Police in South Africa probing wife Anni’s death are looking at a possible connection between Dewani and the murder of a doctor in the country.
It follows claims from the taxi driver in Anni’s case that Dewani had confessed to arranging another murder in a fake hijacking in South Africa.
Dr Pox Raghavjee, 60, was shot dead in the Eastern Cape in November 2007 on his way to work.
Reports in South Africa claimed the doctor’s widow Heather drove to Cape Town to comfort Dewani after Anni was killed last month.
National Commissioner General Bheki Cele said yesterday that a link was being investigated.
Dewani’s spokesman Max Clifford, 67, said the link was “ridiculous”.
He added: “Heather Raghavjee flew from King William’s Town in South Africa to Cape Town to try to comfort the family at the request of her daughter-in-law Alvita, who lives in the Bristol area and knew the Dewani family.
“She had never met Shrien before in her life. But she experienced what he experienced when her husband, Dr Pox Raghavjee, was shot dead in a car-jacking three years earlier.”
Meanwhile, we can reveal that funds being raised in Anni’s name by Dewani’s family are going to a group linked with extremist violence.
Meanwhile, we can reveal that funds being raised in Anni’s name by Dewani’s family are going to a group linked with extremist violence.
Following a plea by his relatives, well-wishers have donated more than £9,000 in memory of Anni through a JustGiving fund-raising page.
On the face of it, the cash is going to a Hindu welfare centre called the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA) in Maharashta, west India.
But we can reveal the organisation behind the centre has been mired in claims of paramilitary violence against other religions in India.
One report into extremism in the country said: “Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram…has been responsible for considerable violence and hatred against Christian and Muslim groups, including during the Gujarat carnage in 2002.”
A website for the centre has links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) group, which has been accused of organising anti-Christian riots and branded a terror outfit. Last night no one from VKA or RSS was available to comment.
Care homes boss Dewani, 30, who is suspected by police of conspiring to have wife Anni, 28, murdered during a fake hijacking of their taxi, was once general secretary of the National Hindu Students Forum UK.
In 2004 he denied claims the organisation was radical.
He said: “We are not extreme and refute any allegations – direct or indirect – that infer that we are.”
Yesterday the police said they were continuing the process of trying to get Dewani extradited to South Africa.
On Friday he was granted bail, having spent two nights in a London jail. But he must wear a tag and live at his parents’ house after paying a £250,000 surety.
