ASI Sandeep Kumar Lather, a 41-year-old Haryana Police officer posted in Rohtak’s Cyber Cell who was found dead on Tuesday, was not officially questioned by investigators probing the suicide of senior
Haryana IPS officer Y Puran Kumar, who was found dead at his official residence in Chandigarh a week earlier, CNN-News18 has learnt.
Officials probing Kumar’s suicide have told CNN-News18 that Lather was not on the immediate list of people who were to be questioned in Kumar’s case. So far, he had not been officially questioned by the team investigating the case.
The sources added that police are looking into reasons that may have led Lather to end his life. Police are also trying to establish any direct link of Lather to Kumar or to any officer against whom action has been taken in Kumar’s suicide case.
CNN-News18 had exclusively accessed Lather’s suicide note and video, in which he had levelled explosive allegations. “Y Puran Kumar took bribes to exclude names of accused from cases as serious as murder,” he alleged. According to Lather, the IPS officer was involved in manipulating transfers and protecting corrupt officers while replacing honest ones. “These people blocked files, called petitioners and mentally tortured them by asking for money. Women police personnel were sexually exploited in exchange for transfers,” he claimed.
The ASI also alleged that Kumar had attempted to deflect attention from a corruption probe by invoking caste bias: “This is not a caste issue. Truth must come out. He was corrupt,” Kumar said. He also praised SP Narendra Bijarnia, named in the IPS officer’s suicide note, calling him an honest officer who was unfairly removed.
Lather was part of an investigation into a corruption case in Rohtak involving a head constable named Sushil Kumar, who was caught allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs 2.5 lakh from a liquor contractor, Praveen Bansal. The contractor had reportedly approached Kumar after being threatened by gangsters. Lather claimed that the bribe was collected by Sushil on behalf of Puran Kumar. He said in his video: “The roots of his corruption run very deep. He has committed suicide fearing the complaint against him.”
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