Police files FIR against top cops in Haryana IPS officer death case

New Delhi: Following the suicide of Haryana IPS officer Y Puran Kumar, the Chandigarh police had registered an FIR against Narendra Bijarnia and Shatrujit Singh Kapur, along with several others whom the officer had named in his death note. The report has been filed under the abetment of suicide and under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

This comes days after a 2001-batch officer shot himself at his Sector 11 Chandigarh residence on Tuesday. In an eight-page suicide note, he accused his senior officers of "mental harassment." Previously, his wife, Amneet P Kumar, an Indian Administrative Service officer, registered a police complaint accusing the two officers, of subjecting her husband to "caste-based slurs" and demanded their immediate arrest.

In her police complaint, Amneet claimed that the case is not of ordinary suicide but a harsh and saddening result of "systematic persecution", that her husband had faced as a member of SC community. His fellow senior teammates have repeatedly humiliated him to the extent that he was left with no other option but to commit suicide.

"While official narratives suggest suicide, my soul cries for justice as a wife witnessing years of systematic humiliation, harassment and persecution inflicted upon my husband by senior officials," NDTV quoted Amneet as saying. In the letter, Kumar specifically mentioned that the systematic discrimination first began when he visited a temple in an Ambala police station in 2020.

The letter also mentioned that IAS (retd), the then ACS Home, did not sanction him an earned leave on time due to which I could not even visit my father for the last time before his death. It caused a continued immense pain and mental harassment and is an irreparable loss to date. This was also intimated to all concerned in writing, including the then Chief Secretary of Haryana, but no action was taken," Kumar said in the note.

The police were under pressure as the officer's family refused to perform his last rites until "justice" was delivered to him. There were discussions that the Haryana government might send officer Kapur and Birhania on long leave to conceal the whole situation.Reports say that the government is even considering appointing an officiating DGP for a time being.