Bengaluru: A reserved man who was determined to get into the civil services and serve the nation - that is how friends of N. Harish describe the 2009 batch IPS officer who was found dead under mysterious circumstances at the Police Officers' Mess at Egmore on Thursday.
“The last time he had come to Bengaluru was late last year for his engagement with a daughter of a police officer in Hoskote,” recalls Ananth, Harish’s childhood friend for 25 years. “Harish was engaged around two months ago. He didn’t invite any of us (friends), as it was a private affair. The marriage was scheduled to be held at Gangamma Thimmaiah Convention Hall in Basaveshwaranagar on March 18-19, to a police sub-inspector's daughter from Hoskote who is also a relative of the family.
The wedding invitations cards have been printed, and a 'puja' was scheduled for Friday after which the parents thought of distributing the cards," Mr. Ananth said.
Large number of friends and relatives thronged the third floor house of N. Harish on the 13th Main, Manjunath Nagar in Rajajinagar, where his parents have been living for over 20 years.
Harish was born and brought up in the very same locality where his father Nagarajappa and mother Shivamma had owned another house two streets away. They were native of Kannamangala village in Hoskote, Ananth said. Harish has two sisters, Asha and Poornima who are married. The family was informed by the Chennai police around 11:30 am about Harish's demise and Nagarajappa along with one of his son-in-law left for Chennai immediately. Relatives and friends were seen consoling Harish's mother and his two sisters who are yet to come to terms with the demise of Harish.
“Harish did his schooling at St. Florence High School in Basaveshwaranagar from standard 1 to 10 and had scored 95% in his SSLC. He later joined KLE PU College in Basaveshwaranagar scoring 96% in his PUC and then joined RVCE for pursuing Mechanic Engineering where he passed out in distinction,” Mr. Ananth said. “We knew how he was determined to join civil services when he refused a job from Infosys that he got during his campus placement,” Mr. Ananth added.
“Harish had taken a separate room in Srinagar to stay away from his house in Rajajinagar in order to focus on his preparations for his civil services. He initially took up IAS, got some good ranking, but was not satisfied, then took up KAS and then IPS in which he got through in flying colours, Harish's another childhood friend Narendra Babu said. He got through IPS after he had gone for a coaching in Delhi for a year after his engineering course. He had even skipped coming for one of his sister’s marriage in Palace Guttalahalli while he was undergoing his IPS training,” Mr. Babu said adding that D.K. Ravi, the late IAS officer, too was his roommate in Delhi while they were preparing for the civil services.
Ananth and Narendra Babu said that after Harish's posting, he was not much in communication with his friend circles in Rajajinagar. “He used to call rarely, but whenever he calls he informs us about everything including the bad weather in Tamil Nadu for which he had purchased an air-conditioner for his room and he had difficulty learning Tamil language. But many a time, whenever he picked our calls, he used to converse in broken Tamil, Ananth recalled hinting that issue also could also be reason for his side-lining in the police department there. I heard that he was denied promotions many times when his fellow batch-mates were promoted two years before him,” Mr. Ananth said adding that the Tamil Nadu government will have to conduct a fair probe and bring justice to Harish's family here.
Besides studies and preparation for civil services, he used to play cricket on weekends with his friends and used to go for trips and outings along with his friends at least twice a year, his friends recollected.
Batchmates express shock
Most of Harish’s IPS batch-mates called his death a rude shock. M.N. Anucheth, SP, Chitradurga, one of his batch-mate as well as his junior at the RV Engineering College, said Harish was a “reserved character”, kept to himself, and had lost touch with his batch-mates after his posting. “The last time I spoke to him was almost six months ago. He had recently even deleted his Facebook account,” Mr. Anucheth said. Another batch-mate said Harish was into depression, and was seeking treatment even during training at the National Police Academy (NPA).
