Bengaluru: A 25-year-old youth committed suicide by jumping in front of a speeding train near Chandapura bridge on Tuesday night.
In a suicide note, the victim, Deepu, has stated that he was taking the extreme step because of torture by the Hebbagodi police. He has mentioned that sub-inspector Hanumantharaju and assistant sub-inspector Siddaraju threatened to book him for kidnap of one of his colleagues.
Deepu, a native of Arkalgud in Hassan district, had come to the City five years ago and was residing in an apartment in Chandapura. He was working as a technician in Reva Motors of Mahindra Group in Bommanahalli, said the police.
Deepu’s brother Hemanth, who works at Renault Motors, said that Hebbagodi police had questioned his brother in connection with the missing case of a woman Akshatha.
The family members of Akshatha had lodged a missing person complaint. Since Deepu had her mobile phone with him, Hebbagudi police questioned him.
“Deepu had told me the entire story the day before he committed suicide. He said he and Akshatha were just good friends and were working in the same company. She had recently gone to her native place in Mangaluru. She came back and told Deepu that she had left her mobile phone in her home town and asked him to get a SIM card and a mobile phone. Deepu brought her a new mobile phone and a SIM card in his name,” Hemanth said.
According to Hemanth, Akshatha had quit her job some four months ago and told Deepu that she was going to Mumbai and would be leaving the City in a few days. She returned the mobile phone along with the SIM card to Deepu. According to Hemanth it was Deepu who found something wrong and got Akshatha’s sister Asha’s number from the mobile phone and told her about Akshata’s plan to shift to Mumbai.
“On April 26, Asha called him saying she would be in Bengaluru on Monday and would collect Akshatha’s mobile phone. Asha along with one Dr Kumar met Deepu near Bommanahalli and they collected the phone. However, they insisted Deepu to accompany them to Hebbagodi police station to lodge a missing complaint. Deepu obliged and went along with them,” Hemanth said.
Apology letter
After speaking to Asha and Dr Kumar, police asked them to leave and started questioning Deepu. “Though Deepu told the police that he has not spoken to Akshatha since March 16, they made him sit in the police station till 7 pm. He called me and asked me to come to the police station. In the police station Siddaraju started threatening Deepu that if he failed to pay Rs 5,000, they would book him for kidnap.
Finally, after negotiations, Siddaraju asked Deepu to write an apology letter and asked him to come back the next morning,” Hemanth said adding that Deepu had not told him about the physical torture by the police.On April 28, Deepu woke up at around 7 am and asked Hemanth to go to work.
“He said he would go to the police station and pay them the money. I called him around 10 am but there was no answer. I went to the police station at around 6 pm and got to know that Deepu never turned up there. I found the death note on the table in the apartment. The CCTV footage at the apartment entrance showed that he had left the apartment at 9 am,” he said.
The police, who had visited the house and examined the death note, came back with the information that a body was found near the railway track near Chandapura bridge. The body has been shifted for a post-mortem. In the suicide note, Deepu has also named Asha and Dr Kumar as responsible for the suicide.