Jaipur, June 2: A city court today directed police to register a case against Rajasthan home minister Gulab Singh Shaktawat in connection with the alleged murder of his domestic servant.

Additional chief judicial magistrate Ramesh Chandra Sharma’s order to Sodala police station came in response to an application filed last Thursday by Roop Lal Rawat, the victim’s brother.

The court had on Friday issued notice to police to furnish facts and details of investigations after Roop complained that the minister murdered his younger brother, Badan Lal. The hearing was fixed for today.

Badan’s father, Hamaji, has submitted a memorandum to Governor .C. Jain demanding an impartial inquiry. The 21-year-old Badan, who worked as Shaktawat’s cook, was on May 22 found dead on the rail tracks in Jaipur. The police had registered a case of suicide.

Roop, in his complaint, alleged that his brother died after being shot in the head. He said he had approached the court as the police refused to register his complaint on May 27.

Roop told the court that Badan, who worked at the Jaipur residence of the minister for the four years, left the job because of misbehaviour from Shaktawat’s wife and had gone to his cousin’s place in Chennai.

He said his brother informed the family that he had left the job after he returned 15 days later to Khera Chora, his native village in Udaipur.

According to Roop, the police threatened the family with dire consequences if Badan did not return with the Rs 50,000 cash that he had stolen from the home minister’s residence. Shaktawat, too, had repeated the same threat, he added.

Roop said his brother was innocent and so he returned to Jaipur on May 21 with his uncle and met the home minister, who “snubbed” him for leaving the job unannounced. Shaktawat then asked them to go to sleep after having dinner. Badan’s body was recovered from the tracks the next day.

While bathing the body, Roop said he saw a small hole on one side of the head while the other side was smashed, which was a clear indication that his brother was shot in the head. That the only other injury on the body was a fracture near the elbow raised further doubt over the police story of a suicide, Roop alleged. Had it been a death after being hit by a train, as the police claim, the body would have been crushed, he said.

The complaint also pointed out that the condition of the body suggested that post mortem was performed by opening the stomach while the head injury was not examined. Though the police pressured the family for an immediate funeral, Roop and other family members insisted on a second autopsy. Ultimately, the district authorities succumbed to the pressure and constituted a medical board.

In his memorandum, Badan’s father wondered why the post mortem was performed in a private hospital instead of the government S.M.S. Hospital, as is the usual practice.

Referring to the recovery of a “love letter” from his son’s body on the basis of which the police are trying to give a love angle to the death, Hamaji said his son was barely literate. He added that earlier, the police as well the minister had been dishing out the “theft” story that they were now denying.

He also alleged that initially the Jaipur police were refusing to take the body for post mortem which, however, was conducted after a green signal from the home minister. Shaktawat had insisted on a funeral in Jaipur, he said.

A Jaipur police team has now gone to Chennai.

Shaktawat has blamed the BJP for what he alleges to be a conspiracy to frame him and cites the fact that leader of the Opposition Gulab Chand Kataria and other BJP leaders accompanied Hamaji when he went to submit the memorandum. Moreover, both Roop and his father were produced by the BJP before the media, he said.

Chief minister Ashok Gehlot has, however, “clipped” Shaktawat’s wings by withdrawing his authority to transfer police officers.