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Haryana cop suicide: Wife alleges 'systematic persecution' by high-ranking officials

Chandigarh, Oct 8 (PTI) A day after Haryana Police officer Y Puran Kumar allegedly shot himself dead here, his bureaucrat wife on Wednesday claimed that his death was the result of "systematic persecution" by high-ranking officers. Amneet P Kumar filed a complaint and requested that the Chandigarh Police register an FIR against a senior police officer of Rohtak and a top-ranking official under section 108 (abetment of suicide) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. She also demanded their immediate arrest. The officers could not be contacted despite repeated attempts. Amneet, a senior bureaucrat, rushed back from Japan, where she was part of a Haryana government delegation led by Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini. Y Puran Kumar (52), a 2001-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, was found dead in his Chandigarh residence on Tuesday. His body, with a gunshot wound, was found in a room in the basement of the Sector 11 house. Sources said in his alleged eight-page typed and signed suicide note, Kumar spoke about continued blatant caste based discrimination, targeted mental harassment, public humiliation by some senior Haryana officers for the past five years, which, he said, were unbearable. "(I) submit this complaint for the registration of an FIR...regarding the harassment and abetment caused by the said persons to the extent of resulting in the death of my husband," Amneet said in her complaint. She said that her husband, who came from the Scheduled Caste community, was an officer of unimpeachable integrity and extraordinary public spirit, and was found dead by gunshot at their home. Known for his interventions in matters related to the rights of officers, seniority and other issues, Puran Kumar was recently posted as the Inspector General of the Police Training Centre (PTC) in Rohtak's Sunaria. He was earlier posted as the Rohtak Range IG and was recently transferred to Sunaria. Amneet alleged, "While official narrative suggests suicide, my soul cries for justice as a wife witnessing years of systematic humiliation, harassment, and persecution inflicted upon my husband by senior officials." "That my husband's pain was not hidden and is explanatory from the numerous complaints filed by him, which he has referred to in his suicide note, endured caste-based discrimination," she said in her complaint. She alleged that her husband had reasonably learnt and intimated to her that a conspiracy was being hatched at the direction of a top-ranking official, and he would be falsely implicated in a frivolous and mischievous complaint by fabricating false evidence. A liquor contractor had lodged a complaint against a head constable, Sushil Kumar, in Rohtak, alleging that he had sought a bribe from him in Puran Kumar's name. The head constable had been arrested on Monday in the matter. She alleged, "...my husband was being implicated in the said case by fabricating the evidence against him, which pushed him to his final anguish." Regarding this case, he had contacted the top-ranking officer, but at that time, the officer had hushed up the conversation. She claimed that her husband then called a senior police officer, but he intentionally didn't answer his call. "The eight-page suicide note, a document of a broken spirit, lays bare these truths and names of numerous officers whose relentless actions pushed him to the edge," she stated in her complaint. "For the harassment meted out to my husband, he used to inform me about the same, it is impossible for me to find the words for what my children and I have lost-a husband, a father, a man whose only crime was honesty in service," she said. She said, further to the foregoing, her husband repeatedly invoked the protection of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, after being subjected to caste-based slurs, exclusion from places of worship on police premises, caste based discrimination, targeted mental harassment, public humiliation and atrocities by senior officers. "I further want to bring to your notice that it is settled law that continuous acts of harassment, humiliation and defamation can constitute abetment. The totality of circumstances must be examined, not just proximate incidents. Administrative persecution can drive a person to suicide," she claimed in her complaint. "This is not a case of ordinary suicide but a direct result of systematic persecution of my husband officer from the 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 said in her complaint. She said when she reached home, she found another copy of the suicide note in a laptop bag, which she had handed over to the Chandigarh Police along with the laptop. Meanwhile, a Chandigarh police statement late Wednesday evening said that in the "reported suicide case of Y Puran Kumar, some CCTV cameras were analysed by the team. The request was moved to the Director of Health Services, Chandigarh, for the constitution of a medical board with a forensic expert for postmortem." "Further, additional rooms in the residence (in Sector 11), which were inaccessible yesterday and were sealed by the CFSL, Sector 36, Chandigarh, wherein another copy for Will and a final note were recovered," the police statement said. "Some electronic items were also seized from the residence," the police statement said. A complaint has been received by Sector 11 SHO, Chandigarh, from Amneet P Kumar in the matter. Further investigation is underway, it said. Some senior Haryana bureaucrats, including Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi, met Amneet Kumar after she arrived here and offered their condolences. PTI SUN VSD HIG HIG

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