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Chandra Levy Remains Untraced

Susan Levy had been thinking for long of taking her daughter Chandra to India, visit shrines, temples, and monasteries there -- and spend a day or two in Benares.

Unlike Susan, her daughter was not into Hinduism, though she had got into a bit of yoga last year. Susan Levy was raised Jewish, but says she turned to Hinduism to understand mysteries of life, and was keen that her daughter learn from the Gita and the mystical writings of Hindu sages.

Today, as Susan Levy dips into the Bhagvad Gita and other spiritual works for solace, she has no clue where Chandra is.

Chandra Levy has been missing for over two months from Washington where she worked as an intern. And her disappearance has gained national attention since the investigators discovered about a month ago she had made phone calls to Gary Condit, a Congressman from her home district in California.

The tabloids, sensing elements of Clinton-Monica Lewinsky affair in the drama, grabbed the story. But for several weeks Condit, a 53-year-old Democrat with grown children, had been asserting that Chandra was a 'good friend'.

Condit, who was in the forefront of Democrats who had criticized Clinton and had urged him to tell the whole truth about his relationship with Lewinsky, had also been denying that he had a romantic or physical relationship with Chandra.

But following a detailed revelation from Chandra's aunt Linda Zamsky last week that Chandra and Condit had an affair, District of Columbia (DC) police interviewed Condit for the third time. This time he admitted, according to sources quoted by major publications, that he indeed had an affair with the 24-year-old intern.

Zamsky has said Levy had told her she wanted to marry the Congressman in five years and bear his children. She also told reporters that Condit had warned Chandra that the relationship would be over if anybody came to know about it.

Shortly before Chandra disappeared, Zamsky says, she left a message on her aunt's answering machine saying she was returning home. She also said she had 'some big news'.

The police and FBI, however, say that Condit is not a suspect. "The Congressman was not a suspect before the meeting, the Congressman was not a suspect during the (third) meeting, and the Congressman was not a suspect since the meeting," Terrance Gainer, a top investigating official in Washington DC, said.

But Susan Levy and her husband are not comforted. They want Condit to take a polygraph test. If he lied about Chandra on two earlier occasions, they say, he could still be hiding a lot about her.

According to CNN, DC police now want to search Condit's apartment following his attorney's statement that the Congressman 'will provide whatever additional information or material' is needed in the search for Chandra Levy.

Police had said earlier that they believe Chandra has not committed suicide. Her mother too says that Chandra is made of strong timber. But this weekend Gainer said several theories, including suicide, were being studied. Others include homicide, amnesia, or the possibility that Chandra voluntarily walked away.

Meanwhile Abbe Lowell, a high-powered lawyer for Condit, would not take questions about the relationship during his appearances on three popular talk shows. Lowell, who had clearly stated for many weeks Condit had no sexual relationship with Chandra, now blamed the press for 'over-coverage' of the case.

"It's not important that you know the nature of the relationship. It's important that the police do, and the police have what they need to see if it helps them find Chandra Levy," he said on CBS' Face the Nation.

"What he told the police about what his relationship was with her or anybody else is not the news," Lowell continued. "You're making it the news. It's not helping find Chandra Levy."

He said the media's preoccupation with the relationship between Condit and Chandra 'has obscured the search and invaded the Condit family's privacy'.

"He's a public figure who still believes that a public figure can have a private life," Lowell told CNN.

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