Hyderabad: Home Guard Mantri Ravinder, who attempted suicide after allegedly being humiliated when he went to inquire about his pending salary on September 5, succumbed to his injuries on Friday morning. He was 38.
Ravinder is survived by his wife Sandhya and their sons, one of them 16 years old and the other 14. His wife has alleged that Ravinder was murdered.
Ravinder (HG-8025) was posted to the Chandryangutta traffic police. On Tuesday, at about 3.30 pm, he went to the Home Guard commandant's office at Goshamahal to inquire about his salary which had not been paid for two months, police said.
There, he was alleged insulted by assistant sub-inspector Narsing Rao and constable A. Chandrashaker and attempted suicide. Others at the office rescued him and took him to Osmania General Hospital with 68 per cent burns. He was later shifted to a private hospital where he died on Saturday.
At the hospital, Ravinder was filmed in a video saying: "Nenu Home Guard ani nannu chinna chupu toti chusi na to chala ghoranga matladindu, nannu e paristhithi ki tisko daaniki karanam veel eddaru" (They insulted me because I am a Home Guard. They are responsible for my state)."
Ravinder family members and colleagues demanded that this video be taken as his dying declaration (DD). Police sources said that Ravinder had named the police personnel before a magistrate.
Shahinayatgunj sub-inspector K. Lakshmaiah, the investigation officer, said the police had not received a copy of the dying declaration. "We have altered the case to abetment to suicide and booked Narsing Rao and A. Chandrashekar," he said.
At the OGH morgue, Ravinder's family members refused to accept his body and demanded that the two police personnel be booked for murder. Senior police officers pacified them by assuring action against the guilty.
Ravinder’s last rites will be performed at the Nalla Vagu smashanam in Chandrayangutta, his relative G. Prasad said.
Ravinder, the only son of Mantri Papaiah and Sandhya of Siddipet, joined the Home Guard on his uncle's insistence, after completing his SSC in 2007.
He married Sandhya after they fell in love, in 2005. "I am proud of my husband. During his 17 years of service he never compromised on his job and was very punctual. He was transferred to seven areas but there was not a single complaint," Sandhya recalled.
"He was always positive. I am sure that he did not attempt suicide, but he was murdered and the police are suppressing the facts," she alleged.
She demanded that Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao, home minister Mohammed Mahmood Ali, Director General of Police (DGP) Anjani Kumar and city police commissioner C.V. Anand take action against those responsible her husband's death.
Papaiah, who runs a sweetmeat shop in Chatrinaka, said Ravinder with his meagre earnings had got his sisters Vara Lakshmi and Pavani married. Pavani and her husband are constables.
