Gurugram: IPS officer Y. Puran Kumar’s suicide has exposed deep fissures in Haryana’s bureaucracy, with a large faction unhappy with their seniors to the extent that they have developed a lack of trust after the complaint of Kumar’s wife, Amneet P. Kumar, an IAS officer, against Haryana DGP Shatrujeet Kapoor and Rohtak SP Narendra Bijarniya.
The Haryana Civil Services (HCS) officers have openly come out in support of Kumar’s family and demanded the removal of all top officers sitting in posts where they can influence the probe into the IPS officer’s suicide. Meanwhile, several IAS and IPS officers, too—particularly those from the Scheduled Caste community—are also seething over the way a young IPS officer had to end his life due to the politics of those occupying top posts.
Haryana IPS officer Y. Puran Kumar died by suicide on 7 October, with his purported suicide note accusing Haryana DGP Shatrujeet Kapur and Rohtak SP Narendra Bijarniya of trying to frame him in a false case of corruption. Besides the two of them, the 52-year-old IPS officer also named 13 present and past officers, whom he accused of having harassed and humiliated him because he belonged to the Scheduled Castes (SC).
His family consented to the post-mortem late Friday after Haryana Home Secretary Sumita Misra visited Amneet’s residence, and assured her of action in a fair and transparent manner.
‘A series of false cases’
On Thursday, D. Suresh, a 1995-batch Haryana cadre IAS officer from Hyderabad, apprised Chief Minister Nayab Saini of the police force under DGP Shatrujeet Kapur targeting Dalit or economically weaker officers since Kapur’s appointment as the Haryana Vigilance Bureau chief in 2020.
“As resident commissioner of the Haryana government in Delhi, I receive the CM whenever he comes here. I apprised him of how officers from the SC community, or those from a weaker background, are targeted by manufacturing false evidence against them,” he said, speaking to ThePrint.
D. Suresh alleged that Kapur targets SC and economically weaker officers because the DGP knows that they are not in a position to retaliate, and this allows him to project himself as a champion against corruption.
D. Suresh also met Haryana Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi Wednesday while visiting the grieving Amneet P. Kumar. The IAS officer said that he told the CS that nothing short of the arrests of Kapur and Bijarniya would be acceptable to officers.
Talking about the FIR at Rohtak that proved a trigger for Y. Puran Kumar’s suicide, D. Suresh said that it was registered to frame the Rohtak cop in a false case.
The standard operating procedure in cases of a complaint against a senior officer is to hold a preliminary enquiry (PE) first, and only if there is prima facie evidence, the chief minister and the chief secretary are apprised of the matter.
“However, Haryana Police and Haryana State Vigilance Bureau [now, Anti-Corruption Bureau] registered FIRs against several senior IAS officers, without taking the matter up with the government,” D. Suresh said.
Incidentally, D. Suresh is among the officers who has faced the Kapur-led vigilance bureau’s action. The IAS officer claimed that the action against him was also without the requisite government approvals.
In 2020, the Kapur-led vigilance bureau recommended action against D. Suresh among other officers for allegedly causing losses to Haryana Shehri Vikas Pradhikaran—formerly Haryana Urban Development Authority—by re-allotting a plot in 2019 to a Gurugram-based school at 1993 land rates.
On receiving an application from D. Suresh, the Central Information Commissioner Vijai Vardhan, eventually in April last year, directed the state government to provide him with the vigilance inquiries against him and the approvals granted under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.
ThePrint reached Shatrujeet Kapur via messages on his WhatsApp. The report will be updated once he responds.
An amendment in 2018 to the Prevention of Corruption Act—Section 17A—introduced a shield for public servants, prohibiting any inquiries or investigations into decisions of public officials or their recommendations during official duties, without prior approvals.
“However, this provision is being given a go-by in Haryana,” another senior IAS officer from the Scheduled Castes community told The Print, requesting anonymity.
The senior officer alleged that Dalit officers and those from a weaker background are easy targets for the vigilance bureau to highlight its achievements in checking “corruption”.
Meanwhile, other officials, who have amassed wealth or built houses, including plum properties or private guest houses in Gurugram, among other constructions, are projected as honest and upright officers, he added.
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Call for ‘impartial probe’ into suicide
Another officer, speaking to The Print on condition of anonymity, said that in recent times, anonymous and false complaints to trap officers belonging to weaker sections of the society have become the norm. This, he said, involves false FIRs, direct arrests, and the torture of officers, with the sole purpose of instilling fear among those from the SC and OBC communities, among others.
The clear message is that anyone who raises questions will get framed, the officer said, adding that fake evidence and WhatsApp chats often become the grounds for such cases, without any investigations.
Shambhu—who uses only his first name—a Haryana Civil Services (HCS) officer of the 2016-batch, and currently, CEO, Zila Parishad, Kurukshetra, and head, Haryana Civil Services (Executive Branch) Association, a body representing all 258 HCS officers of Haryana, told ThePrint that the outfit gave a representation before CM Saini.
It requested the CM to remove all those in top posts with the power to influence the probe into the IPS officer’s suicide case.
Asked if he wanted only the DGP removed or CS Anurag Rastogi too—his name figures in the eight-page final note of the IPS officer—Shambhu shared a copy of the association’s representation, dated 9 October, demanding, “In the interest of justice, the association also suggests that it is necessary to temporarily remove accused officers from positions of power to alleviate apprehension of undue influence over junior-ranking investigating officers.”
“When we say removal of accused officers, it clearly means all those mentioned in the FIR,” Shambhu said. “We are not against any officer at all. All that we want is an impartial and transparent probe such that no officer arrayed as an accused in the FIR sits at a position where he can influence the probe.”
The representation urged the CM to ensure a speedy investigation based on the understanding of the seriousness of the case.
This is an updated version of the report.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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