SHO dismissed for ‘abetting’ woman’s suicide

A Delhi Police inspector, who was arrested after a 25-year-old woman allegedly ended her life and left behind a note – accusing the officer of “torture” and “harassment”, has been dismissed from services.

“If he is allowed to continue in the force, it would be detrimental to public interest and further tarnish the image of the police in society,” stated the order issued by Sanjay Singh, Joint Commissioner of Police (Northern range).

In the order, Singh added that the misconduct of the accused officer, Dinesh Kumar, who was posted as the SHO of the Vijay Vihar police station, is grave and warrants an exemplary punishment of dismissal. He added that the punishment awarded to the officer would send a strong message to the society and check the recurrence of such behaviour.

The incident came to light on Friday when the woman, identified as Rekha, ended her life by consuming some poisonous substance outside the Tis Hazari Courts. The police recovered a suicide note from her possession, in which Rekha has stated that she was “depressed” as Kumar used to torture her to obtain information about her husband Niwas, who is allegedly a proclaimed bad character in Vijay Vihar area.

The police later arrested Kumar. It was learnt that he had brought Rekha to the police station and videographed her, wherein it is evident that she gave a statement under stress. Four such video clips were found on Kumar’s mobile phone.

On analysing Kumar’s cellphone, the police found that he had 239 conversations with Rekha in the last six months. Some conversations were over 20 minutes and some were during odd hours.

Meanwhile, the police are probing the case from various  angles. The police also learnt that the woman had tried to end her life, using similar fashion, in 2005. She had then implicated her former husband in a case of attempt to murder and he was even jailed during this period.

In 2006, she had filed a case of sexual assault against her in-laws, which also turned out to be fake, following which she registered another case in 2013.