By Vivek Gupta
Chandigarh: Disturbing details have surfaced surrounding the death of senior Indian Police Service officer, Y. Puran Kumar, the additional director general of police in Haryana, leading to more questions among the state’s police and administrative circles.
Kumar’s eight-page typed and signed suicide note – that was recovered following his death, allegedly by suicide, on October 7 at his residence in Chandigarh – had repeated references to ‘caste discrimination’, ‘mental harassment’, ‘public humiliation’ and ‘atrocities’.
The 2001-batch officer, who hailed from Andhra Pradesh, served in several key posts during his long police service in the state. He had headed the Ambala and Rohtak police ranges, along with heading Home Guards, Telecommunications, and several other key departments.
His suicide note reflected how sustained humiliation and bias within the system had allegedly pushed him to take his own life.
The late officer’s wife, Amneet P. Kumar, an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer, had moved an official complaint before Chandigarh police on October 8, seeking a first information report against current Haryana director general of police Shatrujeet Singh Kapur and Rohtak superintendent of police Narendra Bijarniya for abetment to suicide.
She also sought action against these senior officers under relevant sections of the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act for alleged caste discrimination against her husband, to the extent that he was driven to suicide.
“This is not a case of ordinary suicide but a direct result of systematic persecution of my husband – an officer from SC community – by powerful and high-ranking officers who have used their positions to mentally torture him, ultimately driving him to such an extent that he was left with no other option but to take his life,” she wrote in her complaint.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.