Haryana ASI commits suicide in Rohtak, names Puran Kumar in purported video and note
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Chandigarh (PTI): A Haryana Police assistant sub-inspector allegedly shot himself dead in Rohtak district on Tuesday, purportedly leaving behind a six-minute video and a three-page suicide note levelling corruption allegations against the late IPS officer Y Puran Kumar.
The veracity of the video and the statement could not be immediately verified.
Police sources said ASI Sandeep Kumar (42) played a role in the arrest of head constable Sushil Kumar, an aide of Puran Kumar who was an inspector general in Rohtak district and was found with a gunshot wound in his Chandigarh home last week.
The body of the ASI, who was posted in the cyber cell of the Rohtak district police office, was recovered from a makeshift room of his relative in the fields on the Ladhaut-Dhamar Road in Rohtak.
Sandeep Kumar allegedly committed suicide on the upper floor of the room that had been built for the motor of the tubewell servicing in his maternal uncle's fields.
After the incident, the family took the body to the house of a relative in the same village.
"We are trying to take a complaint from them (ASI's family) so that FIR can be lodged," a police official said, adding they were also trying to persuade the family to move the body to a mortuary.
Police are yet to comment officially on Sandeep Kumar's note or the video. "Sandeep shot himself," a senior police official from Rohtak said over the phone.
His alleged suicide comes against the backdrop of the escalating controversy over the death of IPS officer Puran Kumar, who purportedly left a note accusing eight officers, including DGP Shatrujeet Kapur and Rohtak SP Narendra Bijarniya, of "blatant caste-based discrimination, targeted mental harassment, public humiliation and atrocities".
While the government has sent DGP Shatrujeet Kapur on leave, Bijarniya was transferred last week and was replaced by S S Bhoria as Rohtak SP.
Meanwhile, Rohtak Police said they received information that ASI Sandeep Kumar had committed suicide by shooting himself with his service pistol.
"A suicide note was found near the body. Furthermore, a video was also recorded by Sandeep Kumar before his alleged suicide, which is being investigated by the police," an official said.
Talking to reporters at the site of the incident, Rohtak Superintendent of Police S S Bhoria said, "ASI Sandeep was a very hardworking and honest person in our department. We received information that a body had been found, after which we reached here."
Asked about the video and the note, he said, "To say anything at this stage is difficult... the forensic team is investigating."
In the video, Sandeep Kumar purportedly levelled serious allegations against Puran Kumar, saying even freedom fighter Bhagat Singh made sacrifices and walked a difficult path after which the country awakened.
"And today, this country will awaken when we sacrifice ourselves on the path of truth," he is purportedly heard as saying while claiming that "honest officer" Narendra Bijarniya had confronted Puran Kumar.
Sandeep, in the video and the alleged suicide note, also demanded that a "probe must be conducted", which will look into the assets of Y Puran Kumar and his family members.
Puran Kumar's name had cropped up in a bribery scandal recently.
A liquor contractor in Rohtak filed a bribery case against head constable Sushil Kumar. He alleged that Sushil Kumar sought a bribe of Rs 2.5 lakh in Puran Kumar's name (when he was posted there).
Sushil Kumar was arrested recently.
Puran Kumar, 52, had recently been posted as inspector general, Police Training Centre (PTC), in Sunaria, Rohtak.
The Rohtak Police, meanwhile, said they stand with the ASI's family in this hour of grief and appealed to the public to maintain peace and law and order.
ASI Sandeep Kumar is survived by three children and five sisters, police sources said.
His relative Sheeshpal, who lives in Julana, said that Sandeep used to do a lot of work for society and was an active blood donor.
He was an honest officer, he said.
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Explosive device kills 13, injures 38 on bus in southwestern Colombia as violence persists
Bogota (Colombia) (PTI): An explosive device killed 13 people travelling on a bus in southwestern Colombia on Saturday, an attack the country's army chief described as a “terrorist act" that also left at least 38 injured as violence linked to drug trafficking in the region escalates.
Octavio Guzman, the governor of the region of Cauca, said on X that the device was set off while the bus was travelling along the Panamerican Highway in the municipality of Cajibio. Five children were among the injured, Cauca Health Secretary Carolina Camargo told Noticias Caracol, a TV news program.
Gen. Hugo Lopez, commander of Colombia's Armed Forces, told a news conference that it was a “terrorist act" and blamed the network of a man known as “Ivan Mordisco” — one of Colombia's most wanted figures — and the Jaime Martínez faction. Both are dissidents of the now-defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia that operate in the region.
Neither Ivan Mordisco nor the Jaime Martínez faction abide by the peace agreement signed with the state in 2016.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro condemned the attack on X.
“Those who carried out the attack and killed seven civilians — and wounded 17 others — in Cajibío — many of them Indigenous people — are terrorists, fascists, and drug traffickers,” he wrote.
The attack is the latest in a spate of explosions that have attempted to target public infrastructure. At least 26 incidents have taken place in the past two days in southwestern Colombia, which Lopez said have only affected civilians.
They included a shooting at a police station in the rural area of Jamundi, and an attack on a Civil Aviation radar facility in El Tambo, where authorities took down three explosives-laden drones earlier on Saturday. No one was hurt.
On Friday, two vehicles rigged with explosives were detonated near military units in Cali and Palmira, causing material damage.
The escalation of violence in that region — a territory contested by illegal armed groups linked to drug trafficking — prompted the mobilisation of high-ranking officials on Saturday. Led by Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez, the delegation that includes regional governors and local authorities, was meeting in Palmira when the deadly explosion occurred.
“These criminals seek to instil fear, but we will respond with firmness,” Sanchez said on X.
Meanwhile, Francisca Toro, governor of Valle del Cauca, has called upon the national government to provide “immediate support.” In a message on X, Toro called for a reinforcement of public security forces, enhanced intelligence operations and “decisive actions” against crime in the face of a “terrorist-level escalation.”
According to authorities, Cauca and Valle del Cauca serve as a critical hub for illicit activities of illegal armed groups vying for control over sea and river access routes leading to the port of Buenaventura — a key transit point used to traffic drugs to Central America and Europe.
The government has also offered a reward of more than 1 million dollars for information leading to the capture of “Marlon,” who is identified as the leader of the region's dissident group. On Friday, local authorities offered more than USD 14,000 for information leading to the identification and location of those behind the attacks in Cali and Palmira.
