Gurugram: Shatrujeet Singh Kapur, Haryana Director General of Police (DGP), was booked by the Chandigarh Police Thursday evening after Y. Puran Kumar, a 2001-batch IPS officer, allegedly shot himself dead at his Chandigarh residence Tuesday and left behind a ‘final note’ holding top police officials, including the DGP, as responsible for his extreme step.
The note lists “job stress, mental harassment, and dissatisfaction” due to years of perceived bias and names 15 current and former IAS and IPS officers, accusing them of “vindictive and revengeful” action and other forms of harassment.
The deceased officer’s wife, Amneet P. Kumar, a 2001-batch IAS officer of the Haryana cadre, had earlier lodged a complaint urging the police to book and arrest Kapur and Rohtak SP Narendra Bijarniya for abetting her husband’s suicide.
A 21-page FIR was registered Thursday under Sections 108 and 3 (5) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, pertaining to abetment of suicide, and Section 3(1) (r) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, pertaining to intentional insult or intimidation of an SC/ST member. The FIR includes Amneet’s complaint and Kumar’s final note in its contents and holds as accused all those named by them. ThePrint has seen the FIR.
Kumar in his note held Kapur “responsible” for pushing him to the brink by trying to frame him in a criminal case. Hailing from Andhra Pradesh, Kumar was last posted as Inspector-General of Police, Police Training College, Sunaria in Rohtak.
An IPS officer of the 1990 batch, Kapur, 59, has long been known for his anti-corruption focus, particularly when he headed Haryana’s Anti-Corruption Bureau, called the State Vigilance Bureau earlier, but has been in the eye of a storm ever since the alleged suicide of Kumar. He took over as Haryana DGP two years ago and is set to retire in October 2026.
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Who is Shatrujeet Singh Kapur?
Born in 1966 in Jind, Haryana, Kapur hails from a modest family. Little is publicly known about his early life beyond his roots in rural Haryana, which he occasionally mentioned in interviews as shaping his grounded approach to public service.
Kapur holds a Bachelor of Technology (BTech) degree in mechanical engineering. He cleared the civil services examination in 1990 and joined the Haryana cadre thereafter.
Kapur’s 34-year journey in the IPS included his posting as Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in various districts, focusing on law and order. He later moved to specialised roles in the transport and electricity departments, where he tackled regulatory challenges like smuggling and power theft.
He served as Superintendent of Police (SP) in districts like Ambala and Gurugram, earning praise for operational efficiency during high-stakes events, including communal flare-ups.
He rose to more prominent posts after Manohar Lal Khattar took over as Haryana CM in 2014, and appointed him chief of the crime investigation department (CID).
Kapur was later appointed chairman and managing director of power utilities Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam and Uttar Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam, a post normally held by a senior IAS officer. It is believed he was given the charge due to his proximity to the CM.
He was appointed as Director General of the Haryana Anti-Corruption Bureau in 2020, where he spearheaded high-profile probes into graft among politicians and bureaucrats.
In August 2023, Kapur was elevated as Haryana DGP, succeeding P.K. Agarwal. Selected from a UPSC-empanelled list of three 1990-batch officers, he was the junior-most, superseding Muhammad Akil and R.C. Mishra—a move again attributed to his proximity to Khattar.
Kapur continued holding the charge of ACB alongside DGP duties.
Controversies in Kapur’s tenure
Kapur’s career has been marked by a plethora of controversies.
In July 2015, when he was an additional director general of police (ADGP), heading the Haryana CID, a department sleuth was caught allegedly snooping on activities in state minister Anil Vij’s office.
The sleuth reportedly told Vij that he had been deployed by his seniors in the CID to keep an eye on those visiting the minister’s office. Vij called two ministerial colleagues to his office and summoned Kapur too, but he was reportedly out of the city.
In May 2023, Kanthi Suresh, Editor-in-Chief of Gurugram-based Power Sportz TV, and the wife of 1995-batch IAS officer D. Suresh, wrote to the Haryana Police seeking an FIR against certain “officials of the state’s Anti-Corruption Bureau” for “harassing her, raiding her (office) premises, blackmail, intrusion, and impersonation”.
Shatrujeet Kapur was heading the ACB at the time.
Kanthi had alleged two persons from the bureau visited her Power Sportz TV office in Sector 44 of Gurugram in her absence on 26 April that year and introducing themselves as employees of Gurugram Municipal Corporation. They asked her accountant, Rajender Prasad, to accompany them to their office. However, they took him to the ACB office in Gurugram, interrogated him and threatened him, asking him to confess to knowing certain people, she stated.
In 2020, the ACB had recommended action against D. Suresh as well as other state officers for allegedly causing loss to the Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran (formerly Haryana Urban Development Authority) by re-allotting a plot in 2019 to a school in Gurugram at land rates prevailing in the year 1993. The ACB action at Power Sportz TV office was perceived to be in connection with that.
During Kapur’s term as head of the ACB and later, as DGP, the bureau booked several officers for corruption. However, the action triggered anger among a section of the bureaucracy, since several IAS officers were booked and two were arrested as well.
During his term as head of the ACB, retired police officers were hired on a contractual basis, though their legal authority to conduct investigations and file charges has been challenged in court.
In November 2023, the Punjab & Haryana High Court ordered the Haryana government and ACB to stop using retired officers of the Central Bureau of Investigation as investigators, highlighting concerns about their legal standing and the validity of their actions according to the Police Act.
In March 2023, the Haryana government granted permission to the ACB on its request to investigate two IAS officers—Sonal Goel and Anita Yadav—and seven other officials in connection with an alleged Rs 200 crore scam in the Faridabad Municipal Corporation.
The move drew a sharp reaction from then Congress MLA Neeraj Sharma, the whistleblower in the case who accused the ACB of adopting a pick-and-choose strategy by prosecuting two officers and leaving some others who were also posted at the corporation during the period of the alleged scam.
The state government later declined the ACB’s request to prosecute the IAS officers.
In a media interaction, Kapur had also defended the high rate of crime against women in Haryana, terming the high reporting of cases as evidence of “transparency”, not failure, earning a nod from police circles.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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