OPINION | Haryana’s code of silence

Two suicides in Haryana Police ranks ASI Sandeep Kumar Lather (left) and ADGP Y Puran Kumar

The two suicides in Haryana Police ranks recently, of ADGP Y Puran Kumar and ASI Sandeep Kumar Lather, raise a question: Are Haryana Police and Chandigarh Police the right agencies to investigate these two connected cases that have their genesis in their own murky world? How can the Haryana Police be both the accused and the investigating agency? Or, how can you ask your neighbours to be the investigators?

After all, Y Puran Kumar had named at least 15 senior IPS and IAS officers, including the former DGP of the Haryana Police Shatrujeet Kapur, alleging caste-based discrimination and mental harassment in his suicide note on October 7.

Link between the two suicides

Seven days after Y Puran Kumar’s suicide, Lather too took his life and accused Y Puran Kumar of corruption in his three-page suicide note and also a video claiming that Kumar and his associates were involved in bribery, extortion, and harassment of women officers. He also alleged that Kumar had struck a deal with gangster Rao Inderjit to clear the latter’s name in a murder case. In the same note, he praised the ousted DGP Shatrujeet Kapur.

It is worth mentioning that Sandeep Kumar Lather was part of the team investigating Puran Kumar’s case and also participated in the arrest of Puran Kumar’s PSO, Sushil. One hour before Sandeep Lather took his life, he stopped by a tea stall near Rohtak bypass and met some of his friends, who said that he seemed visibly upset.

That two officers of the Haryana Police took their own lives is one thing, but the signs of a botched-up investigation were there for all to see even before the two had died by suicide, and how? Lather, an ASI by designation, was part of the team investigating the Y Puran Kumar case, in which most of the accusations were against Kumar, a superior of Lather. After Kumar took his life, an SIT that was formed started calling Lather and he was upset that the man he was investigating in a case of corruption had become a reason for him being put under the scanner.

Another layer was added to the case when, on the demand of the family of Lather, an FIR was registered against Kumar’s wife Amneet P Kumar, his brother-in-law, the Punjab legislator Amit Rattan, and one more person for abetment of his suicide.

Murkiness about the investigation

However, the police have refused to provide a copy of the FIR, citing ongoing investigations. Authorities have not disclosed the specific allegations against the accused, which makes the whole affair look murky.

The Chandigarh Police have formed an SIT in the Y Puran Kumar case and will investigate senior IPS and IAS officers from the neighbouring Haryana. Now, an SIT headed by a DSP-level officer has been formed to investigate the Sandeep Kumar Lather case.

Isn’t there a conflict of interest?

The big question is, can the police be self-policed, or in other words, investigate their own senior officers, especially those whom they would have saluted out of protocol a hundred times in the past – remember the complaints by both the victims are against senior IPS officers and in all probability will be investigated by the juniors of those against whom the complaints have been made.

Often enough, the apex court of the country has said that investigations conducted by subordinate officers are inherently flawed and various courts across the country have emphasised that a subordinate officer cannot “provide an independent finding, thus rendering such investigations unreliable.”

Deafening silence which is the outcome of deep rot

Deflect this argument to any who’s who of the Haryana Police or even the government about the Haryana Police’s locus standi to investigate their own and there is seemingly an institutional silence. If one turns the question around, aren’t these two the fit cases to be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation? Again, there is deafening silence.

This may give the impression that it is a one-off case, but the malaise is spread deep in the Haryana Police. Shatrujeet Kapur, a 1990 batch IPS officer has been sent on leave, and OP Singh, who is a 1992-batch IPS officer, takes over from him and there is an utopian assumption that there is going to be no influence from any quarter even though 15 senior IPS and IAS officers have been named in the suicide notes of both the police officers.

Why are political parties silent?

Even the opposition hasn’t raised enough hue and cry about the two cases. A lame “impartial probe” demand by the leader of the Opposition, Bhupinder Singh Hooda, and his ilk in the Congress is the only pressure tactic they have used till now, and that gives the ruling dispensation leeway to ignore the issue completely.

A petition filed in public interest in this very matter in the Punjab and Haryana High Court has sought a CBI probe and also argued that it is a case in which most of the accused are heading the districts, and have not been transferred from their present place of posting. "It is questionable that the state police will investigate because more than a dozen senior IPS and IAS officers have been named….”

However, for some strange reason, nobody wants the CBI to carry out the investigation. Meanwhile, Haryana Police and the Haryana government should get a standing ovation on how to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear in the aftermath of these two suicides that have rattled not just the police force but also the state government, yet they still choose to ignore it.