The noose around the officials of lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan National Institute of Criminology & Forensic Science (NICFS) at Rohini tightened further with the registration of an FIR by the Mathura police in the sensational suicide case of Sankalp Anand and his wife. The Investigating Officer (IO) has named 38 people, including a Director General of Police (DGP) and Inspector General (IG), for allegedly abetting the suicide of the son and daughter-in-law of poet-lyricist Santosh Anand.
Sankalp had named Kamlendra Prasad, the former DG of NICFS in his suicide note. Prasad is an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the 1981 batch from Uttar Pradesh cadre. He is currently posted in lucknow as DG of UP Police Housing Corporation and his name has been doing rounds as the next DGP of UP. Sandeep Mittal, an IPS officer of Tamil Nadu belongs to 1995 batch and he was also named by Sankalp in the suicide note.
It may be recalled that a former IPS officer, Sankalp (38), along with his wife Naresh Nandini (34) and daughter Ridhima (5) had jumped in front of a train in Mathura on October 15. While the husband-wife duo died on the spot, the daughter survived. Police has launched investigations against the accused on the basis of the 11-page suicide note purportedly written by Sankalp before he took the extreme step.
According to a senior police official of Mathura, the FIR has been registered at Kosi Kalan police station and it contains names of DG Kamlendra Prasad and IG Sandeep Mittal. Police have not mentioned the designations of these two senior IPS officials but their names have been mentioned. The FIR is based on the basis of the 11-page suicide note written by Sankalp and he had specifically mentioned the names of those in the NICFS for making his life into a hell.
SP Atul Kumar Srivastava of Mathura said that the FIR under Section 306 (abetment of suicide) has been registered in Kosi Kalan police station on the basis of the complaint given by Santosh Anand, the father of the deceased. Srivastava himself visited Santosh Anand at his Sukhdev Vihar residence and took his written complaint. A police team from Mathura also visited NICFS and took the handwriting sample of Sankalp and other relevant documents too. Meanwhile, the police also recorded statements of a lineman, an eatery owner, his son and his employee, all witnesses to the tragedy.
Sankalp had alleged that he was pushed to the wall by Prasad and Mittal who were involved in a construction scam of Rs250 crore and a job racket too. Sankalp wrote that his ordeal began in 2012 when he was promoted as the DDO at NICF. “After that institute’s director Kamlendra Prasad, DIG Sandeep Mittal and BN Chattoraj told me that under a construction scheme,Rs250 crore have been allotted and to execute the responsibility, they will need a construction company. Subsequently, a Gurgaon-based company named Intergen Energy ltd was elected,” he wrote.
“Till that time, I wasn’t aware that the whole scheme was fake. During the same period, they were also running a fake job racket. For the same, they also publicised an advertisement in Employment News in October 2012. My companion Simi Shankhdhar and her husband Amit Shankhdhar had collected Rs1 crore from the candidates assuring them the job. A woman named Sapna Goyal and DIG Sandeep Mittal want to kill me so that I will not be able to expose their crimes. Sapna and NFl police station’s investigating officer have also taken Rs50 lakh from me. They keep threatening me of the names of probing officer and Sandeep Mittal and want to grab my land as well,” Sankalp wrote in his exhaustive suicide note that was recovered from his car found parked near the place where he ended his life along with his wife.
In a related development, the Ministry of Home Affairs has also sought a detailed report from the Uttar Pradesh Government. Sources said that MHA has taken a dim view of the happenings in NICFS in the light of allegations made in the suicide note. Heads may roll once the report is submitted to the MHA, they added.
