‘Final note details humiliation by seniors’

Chandigarh: A note left behind by Haryana Police officer Y Puran Kumar, who allegedly shot himself dead at his Chandigarh residence, names “senior officers” and details “mental harassment” and humiliation he faced over the past few years, according to sources.

Y Puran Kumar, 52, a 2001-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, was found with a gunshot wound in a room in the basement of his Sector 11 house.

Known for his interventions in matters related to the rights of officers and seniority, Puran Kumar was recently posted as the Inspector General of the Police Training Centre (PTC) in Rohtak’s Sunaria.

His bureaucrat wife, Amneet P Kumar, who rushed to Chandigarh from Japan, where she was a part of a Haryana government delegation, on Wednesday claimed in a police complaint that her husband’s death was the result of “systematic persecution” by high-ranking officers.

She requested an FIR against Shatrujeet Kapur, DGP Haryana, and another senior IPS officer, under Section 108 BNS, 2023 (abetment of suicide) and provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Physical and electronic evidence, including the weapon Puran Kumar allegedly used to shoot himself, was seized by a team from the Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL). A “will” and a “final note” were also found at the scene and seized, police said. Sources said that Kumar left an eight-page typed and signed ‘final note’, which he titled “Continued blatant caste-based discrimination, targeted mental harassment, public humiliation and atrocities by concerned senior officers of Haryana since August 2020 which is now unbearable.”

It mentions a “mala fide generation of mischievous anonymous and pseudo-anonymous” complaints against him, floated and processed by some officers for months together to publicly humiliate and embarrass him and thereby damage his reputation, they said.

Kumar, who comes from the Scheduled Caste community, named a few officers who allegedly blatantly misused their official positions and authority, and compelled him to kill himself, according to sources.

Despite complaints against the officers, they were not investigated, the letter claims, sources said. The note mentions an instance where a bureaucrat, now retired, did not sanction his earned leave on time, due to which he could not visit his father before his death.

Kumar, in the note, says that he raised these issues before many officers, “which are a matter of record,” sources said.

“... I thought over carefully and was convinced and I cannot bare this continued and concerted conspiracy … to continue with caste-based discrimination, public humiliation, targeted mental harassment and atrocities any longer and hence this final decision to end it all,” it reads, according to the sources. Kumar alleges that a top-ranking IPS officer from the state made certain comments in his annual performance appraisal report for the period ending March 31, 2024, which were “factually incorrect, purely imaginary, unsubstantiated, loaded with his personal prejudice and in violation of principles of natural justice.”

The note mentions that while allotting official accommodation to him in Panchkula, Kumar was subjected to additional rules, while in another incident, in November 2023, his official vehicle was withdrawn.

CM meets Kumar’s wife; holds a meeting with top officials

Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini held a meeting with top officials of his government in the wake the IPS officer’s “suicide”.

Sources said the state government may consider sending DGP Kapur on leave and appoint an officiating DGP in his place.

Earlier, Saini, accompanied by some senior bureaucrats, went to the official residence of the deceased IPS officer’s wife Amneet Kumar at Sector 24 here. Saini was at Kumar’s residence for nearly 50 minutes.

Meanwhile, former Chief Minister and Leader of the Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda sought an impartial investigation into the alleged suicide case, demanding that no culprit should be spared and no innocent should be harmed.

WITH AGENCIES INPUTS