Nobody knows exactly when or why the witnesses and small-time crooks caught up in one of India's biggest-ever corruption scandals began dying under mysterious circumstances. But in the past two years, that's what's happened to more than two dozen people implicated in a US$1 billion ($1.5 billion) test-rigging scheme.
Police say that since 2007, tens of thousands of students and job aspirants have paid hefty bribes to middlemen, bureaucrats and politicians in the central state of Madhya Pradesh to rig test results for medical schools and government jobs.
So far, 1930 people have been arrested and more than 500 are on the run. Hundreds of medical students are in prison - along with several bureaucrats and the state's education minister. Even the governor has been implicated.
Police have had their hands full racing to meet a July deadline in the criminal probe. And now they are faced with the deaths of more witnesses and suspects.
The state's government, run by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has said that "no conspiracy was found" in the recent deaths. But others involved in the case fear otherwise.
