Haryana IPS officer'€™s '€˜suicide'€™: Congress leaders meet deceased's family

Chandigarh, Oct 11 (PTI) Congress leaders slammed the BJP government in Haryana on Saturday over IPS officer Y Puran Kumar's "suicide", saying the incident has "shaken" the soul of the country.

Many Congress leaders from Haryana and Punjab, including Randeep Singh Surjewala, Deepender Hooda and Charanjit Singh Channi, met Kumar's wife, IAS officer Amneet P Kumar, to convey their condolences.

Y Puran Kumar, 52, a 2001-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, allegedly shot himself dead at his Sector 11 residence here on Tuesday. He has left behind a "final note".

Addressing the media here, Surjewala said the IPS officer's "suicide" has shaken the soul of the country.

"It is a heart-wrenching incident," he said.

Surjewala wondered that if justice cannot be ensured in the case of a senior IPS officer, what would be the fate of a common man.

He said if a senior police officer has to commit suicide after facing caste discrimination and discrimination by the system, then one can easily imagine the conditions prevailing in the country, especially in Haryana.

"What is the reason that an ADGP-rank officer cannot be allowed to visit a temple in a police station complex, that his leave was not sanctioned on time due to which he could not visit his father before his death? When he wrote a letter to authorities highlighting discrimination on the basis of caste, the government did not have an answer," the Congress leader said.

"Such conditions were created that the police officer was forced to commit suicide," he claimed.

Referring to the shifting of Kumar's body to the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) here without consulting his family, Surjewala said, "What happened is inhuman and unacceptable." He said it was a "crime" to shift the body from the Sector-16 hospital mortuary to the PGIMER, without seeking the permission or consent of the deceased's wife and children.

"Do the deceased officer's two daughters not even have a right to see their father for one last time? Does the government want to deny this too? Whom did the authorities ask before shifting the body from the Sector-16 government hospital? Will the government and administration be able to answer this?" he asked.

If such treatment can be meted out to the family of a top officer who belonged to the Dalit community, one can imagine the situation prevailing in the country, Surjewala said.

"I hope that the government will wake up and give justice to the family of the deceased officer," he said.

Kumar's family members claimed on Saturday that the body was shifted to the PGIMER without consulting them.

Hooda sought an impartial probe into the matter.

"Y Puran Kumar was counted as among the country's finest IPS officers. If a decorated officer is forced to take the extreme step, you can imagine what must have been going on," he said.

The country wants justice for the deceased's family and that is possible only when an impartial probe is conducted and the accused are punished, Hooda said.

"We stand with the deceased officer's family in its hour of grief and we will fight till justice is delivered," the Congress leader said.

The issue is not of an officer who comes from Haryana. The issue is not of Haryana or Punjab nor of a particular community, Hooda said, asserting that it is an issue concerning the entire country.

Channi attacked the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) over the demise of the Haryana officer and said justice must be given to his family.

"He (Kumar) used to fight for the rights of Dalits and even gave up his life. Five days have passed, but his family is not getting justice," the former Punjab chief minister said.

He alleged that senior government officials are regularly visiting Kumar's Sector 24 home, trying to build pressure on the family.

"What is the family demanding? It is demanding that those who forced him to commit suicide should be arrested and punished. We are with the family and will fight till it gets justice," Channi said.

Meanwhile, some representatives of the Scheduled Caste (SC) community told reporters that a 31-member panel has been formed to ensure that the demands and concerns raised by Kumar's family are addressed by authorities. PTI CHS VSD RC