Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday met the family of IPS officer Y Puran Kumar, days after the official allegedly shot himself at his Haryana residence. The case had sparked huge outrage, spotlighting caste bias in bureaucracy and the police.
Gandhi met the IPS officer’s family in Chandigarh, following which he sought action in the case, urging Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to “act now”.
He said the incident sent a “wrong message to Dalits that no matter how successful you are, if you are Dalit, you can be crushed”. He also said that the incident was not just about the respect of the IPS officer’s family, but of all Dalits.
He alleged that Saini didn’t fulfill his commitment of a free and fair inquiry, and that there was a lot of pressure on the late IPS officer’s daughters.
“My message as LoP to PM Modi and the Haryana Chief Minister is fulfil commitment to daughters of IPS Puran Kumar, let his funeral take place,” he was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
Y Puran Kumar died on October 7 after allegedly shooting himself. An eight-page note he left behind allegedly named several senior officials, including Haryana DGP Shatrujeet Kapur and Rohtak SP Narendra Bijarniya, and accused them of “blatant caste-based discrimination, targeted mental harassment, public humiliation and atrocities”, his wife Amneet Puran Kumar said in a complaint.
Rahul Gandhi also backed this claim, alleging systematic discrimination against the Haryana IPS officer to damage his career. “This is not just a matter of one family. There are crores of Dalit brothers and sisters in the country, and they are getting the wrong message. The message that no matter how successful, intelligent, or capable you are, if you are a Dalit, you can be suppressed and thrown out. This is not acceptable for us,” Rahul Gandhi said.
Amneet, who is an IAS officer, sought an FIR against Kapur and Bijarniya, and to include the correct provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Y Puran Kumar’s postmortem is also on hold currently, as the family has refused to give consent for it.
The family had also alleged that they were not informed about the IPS officer’s body being shifted from the mortuary of Government Multi-Specialty Hospital (GMSH), Sector 16, to the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER).
Amneet had informed police officials that the two daughters wished to see their father’s body to pay their respects, a conversation mistaken as consent to proceed with the postmortem, sources earlier told HT.
Later, Chandigarh Police DGP Sagar Preet Hooda also admitted that there had been a communication gap.
