Mumbai: The Lok Sabha MP from Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Mohan Delkar, who died by suicide in a Mumbai hotel on 22 February, had specially travelled to Delhi and met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah to air his grievances but got no response, his son Abhinav Delkar has told ThePrint.
According to Abhinav, Delkar wrote to the central government on several occasions in the last few months in connection with 40-50 issues that he was facing in the union territory but “no one paid attention”.
“I have seen all the correspondence with the Centre. My father raised 40-50 issues in a number of letters that he wrote to PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, Speaker Om Birla,” Abhinav said. “He also took time from the PM and HM to personally go and see them, but they did not assure anything.”
According to Abhinav, on 20 February, just two days before he allegedly died by suicide inside a hotel room in Mumbai’s Marine Drive, the Lok Sabha MP had gone to the Siddhivinayak Temple in the union territory.
Abhinav added that his father did not show any signs of trouble or distress. The following evening, he left his home in Silvassa for Mumbai, telling his family he had routine work in the Maharashtra capital.
According to Abhinav, the next thing the family heard was that he had killed himself and had left a detailed 14-page suicide note written in Gujarati.
Abhinav now suspects that a “threat”, either through a phone call or a message, pushed his father to end his life.
Delkar was an Independent politician serving as a MP. He has had stints in both the BJP and the Congress. He joined the Congress in 2009 but distanced himself from the party in 2019 and successfully contested the election as an Independent candidate.
Delkar was a member of the standing committee on personnel, public grievances, law and justice and also a member of the consultative committee, ministry of home affairs of the lower house.
Father was sent notices, humiliated in public
Speaking to ThePrint, Abhinav alleged that his father suffered constant harassment at the hands of the Dadra and Nagar Haveli administrator Praful Khoda Patel, public humiliation from civil servants and regular threats to implicate him in false cases.
“My father was surrounded by problems. These administrators were extorting money, humiliating him publicly on a daily basis for the last 16-18 months. They were harassing him by sending him notices to demolish his personal assets, were threatening to implicate him in false cases and even launched personal attacks at our family in public,” Abhinav said. “I suspect that someone gave him a threat hours before he killed himself and that will be clear once the investigators look at his phone.”
“This all began in 2019 and Praful Patel along with his SP, DM, law secretary and others did not leave a choice for my father but to end his life,” he added. “The last 16-18 months had been extremely harrowing for him and us as a family.”
Patel is a former BJP leader who served as the home minister of Gujarat when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the chief minister. He was appointed the administrator of both the UTs in 2016 by the NDA government, in a departure from the earlier practice of appointing only IAS officers to the post.
On Tuesday, the Mumbai Police registered a case under sections 306 (abetment to suicide), 389 (Putting person in fear of accusation of offence, in order to commit extortion), 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC and sections of the SC/ST Act — the MP belonged to a Scheduled Tribe (ST) community — against nine people and handed over the case to a Special Investigation Team (SIT).
The FIR, a copy of which is with ThePrint, was registered based on Abinav’s complaint (originally in Marathi) and names Praful Patel, district magistrate (DM) Sandeep Singh, former superintendent of police (SP) Sharad Darade, deputy district magistrate Apurva Sharma, sub-divisional officer Manasvi Jain, police inspector Manoj Patel, DNH law secretary Rohit Yadav, BJP leader Fatehsinh V. Chauhan and Dilip Patel (Talathi).
In his complaint to the police, Abhinav alleged that Patel forced Delkar to cough up Rs 25 crore or else face a false case under the Prevention of Anti-Social Activities (PASA) Act. He also alleged that Patel and his associates tried to take over Delkar’s SSR college in Silvassa.
ThePrint contacted Patel through a WhatsApp message for a comment but he did not reply.
Gujarat BJP MP from Ahmedabad, Hansamukh Bhai Soma Bhai, however, told ThePrint that Patel was not involved and that the FIR was an attempt to “defame him”.
“This is just an attempt by the Congress to defame Patel. As I know Praful Patel, he is an honest person. This is just a conspiracy,” he said.
When asked if the BJP would react to the allegations made by Mohan Delkar in his suicide note, Soma Bhai said, “Why would the party react? This is an issue between the administrators who are named and the affected party. Let the investigation agencies decide and reach a logical conclusion.”
Also read: Who is Praful Khoda Patel? Minister in CM Modi’s Gujarat cabinet now booked for MP ‘suicide’
‘A daily struggle’
Abhinav, however, told ThePrint that his father was humiliated time and again.
He said that in January last year, his father was not invited to an event when President Ram Nath Kovind visited Dadra and Nagar Haveli, adding that the MP was “extremely hurt” by this.
Mohan Delkar then wrote to the Centre asking them to send him an invite so that he could be a part of the event.
“During the visit of the President, the local administration did not invite my father. It was a big insult,” Abhinav said. “For some face saving, my father then wrote to the Centre to send him an invite for the same.”
This, Abhinav said, was just one example.
Delkar was also allegedly stopped from addressing the constituency during the liberation day festivities of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, a tradition that is on for 66 years.
Abhinav now wants Patel and his associates to be removed from their position, at least until the probe against them is on. He has also written a letter to the center demanding the same.
“We want Patel and his officers to be removed from office with immediate effect. If they are still in office, they can very well influence the probe. I have also written to the center demanding the same. But, I am still to hear from them,” Abhinav said.
‘He often got anxious, but said he would fight’
According to the son, his father began getting anxious due to the run-ins with the administration.
“He would often tell me..yeh kya situation agaya hai, young bureaucrats sabke samne insult karne lage hai (What have we come to? Now even the young bureaucrats have started to insult and humiliate me),” Abhinav said.
The son said Delkar would get very anxious and often discussed how the local administration was allegedly after his personal assets and was planning to ruin his career.
“The local administration would send notices to demolish our personal properties even during the lockdown,” Abhinav alleged. “They even tried to harm our business by bringing in some land acquisition matter. Some old cases were reopened.”
He further alleged that Delkar’s popularity is what made the local administrators turn against him.
“My father was a person who worked for the people, he worked a lot for the Adivasis. But these administrators were more interested in filling their own pockets instead of spending it on the people. That is what was not acceptable to them and that is why they wanted to ruin his career,” he said. “My father does not have any past criminal record but these men still harassed him and tried to implicate him so that he can be stopped from contesting the next election.”
Abhinav said that he would have done anything to resolve this issue had he known that this alleged harassment would drive Delkar to end his life.
“We were very close as a family. He often discussed these issues with me; we would find solutions together,” Abhinav said. “He used to get extremely upset; sometimes, he would fear for his family but he was always determined that he would fight it. He was very strong, mentally. I still cannot believe that he took his life.”
Call detail records (CDR) being analysed
The Mumbai Police is in the process of analysing the call detail records (CDR) of Delkar’s phone to see who he was in touch with in the last 12-15 hours before he died by suicide.
“We suspect that he killed himself late on Sunday night, before which he sat and wrote down the detailed suicide note,” a senior police officer said. “We are analysing his call detail records to see who all he spoke to in the last hours. Also, who all he met on Sunday, the messages that he received on his phone.”
“This is being done to see if something triggered the suicide and if there was a threat to him,” the officer added. “His handset has been sent for forensic examination.”
The police have also accessed the CCTV footage of the hotel to see if there was someone who came to meet Delkar in his room on 21 and 22 February.
“The investigation in the case is on. Once we have sufficient evidence, we will also call the accused for questioning,” the officer said.
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