A couple of hours before he allegedly shot himself in the head Tuesday, ASI Sandeep Kumar Lather met his friends at a tea stall near the Rohtak bypass. It was their “usual hangout” but “something was off, he looked troubled and distracted”. Then came a phone call, around 11.30 am, and Sandeep quickly excused himself, saying he was going back to his office.
“He lied,” Sandeep’s friend Sanjay Deswal, who was part of that group of friends, told The Indian Express Wednesday while describing their last meeting. Within an hour or so, Deswal came to know that Sandeep had “died by suicide”, found lying in a pool of blood at his uncle’s house in the middle of a field. The ASI left behind a 6m 28s video and a “final note” levelling serious allegations of corruption against Haryana IGP Y Puran Kumar, who had died by suicide days before.
“We met at the tea stall near the bypass at around 11.30 am. He had called around 11 am saying ‘let us meet here for tea and a chat’. It was our usual hangout place. Four-five of us reached and the topic of discussion was the way the death of IGP Puran Kumar was being handled. It appeared that the suicide was troubling Sandeep and he did not like the direction in which the probe was headed,” Deswal said.
“A few minutes into the conversation, Sandeep got a phone call, after which he said he was heading back to his office. He left on his bike and I assumed he was going back to the cyber cell. I too returned home and within an hour heard about his death. Then, the video of a farm labourer saying he has seen a body with a gunshot wound went viral,” he said.
Others in the cyber cell of Rohtak police, where Sandeep had been working for the past one year, had noticed nothing amiss about him. One of them told this newspaper that he had reported at around 9 am for duty at the office, around 11 km from his maternal uncle’s residence in Ladhot village. Sandeep had been staying there with his wife and three children. “Sandeep was his usual cheery and hardworking self, the entire week,” the colleague said.
With Sandeep’s family refusing to release his body, kept in a refrigerated coffin, demanding a probe into the death, a senior Haryana Police officer told The Indian Express: “Investigation is going on and no culprit shall be spared at any cost. Whatever happened, the truth shall be unearthed. Officers of the police and government representatives are in touch with (Sandeep’s) family.”
On Wednesday night, the family finally agreed for the post mortem examination to be conducted Thursday, and Sandeep’s body was taken by the police to Rohtak PGIMS. The police also registered an FIR on charges of abetment to suicide on the basis of the note left behind by Sandeep.
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The Indian Express had earlier reported about the uncanny similarities in the alleged suicides by Sandeep and Puran Kumar on October 7: purported suicide letters titled “final note”, gunshot wound in the head, and no eyewitness.
While Puran Kumar left behind a typed eight-page note, blaming nine serving IPS officers including DGP Shatrujeet Kapur (sent on leave Monday) and Rohtak SP Narendra Bijarniya (transferred last Saturday), Sandeep left behind a four-page handwritten note in which he defended Kapur and Bijarniya and accused Puran Kumar of corruption.
On Wednesday, sources told The Indian Express that Chandigarh Police’s Special Investigation Team had questioned Puran Kumar’s PSO Sushil Kumar in Rohtak’s Sunaria jail. “On October 6, Sushil Kumar was arrested by Rohtak police and Y Puran Kumar died by suicide on October 7. On October 12, Chandigarh Police questioned Sushil Kumar and the next day, ASI Sandeep died by suicide. Investigation is being done on all possible aspects,” police sources said.
According to Sandeep’s friend Deswal, it was not the first time the ASI had confided in him about IGP Puran Kumar’s alleged suicide. “Sandeep first called me on Saturday evening, saying that the issue had been bothering him for a week. I told him ‘let’s meet and discuss’. On Sunday, we met at night during his duty hours. He told me the real issue was something else but (Puran Kumar’s death) was being portrayed in a completely contrary manner.”
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A senior officer posted in Rohtak Cyber Cell said, “Sandeep had not taken any leave for more than a month. He had been on duty all days of the current and previous weeks. Like with other days in the cell, the work hours were long and across weekends. His last few days were also like that.”
Back in Ladhot village, politicians across party lines arrived to offer support to Sandeep’s family — from Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and ministers Krishan Lal Panwar and Mahipal Dhanda to Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh Hooda and INLD’s Abhay Chautala.
While Saini assured the family that “justice shall be delivered”, INLD’s Chautala demanded a thorough investigation “under the supervision of a sitting High Court Judge”.
