CBI ‘probed’ Bansal’s suicide, but sitting on findings

Queries sent to CBI director Rakesh Asthana have gone unanswered.

Even after over two months of the twin suicides of Corporate Affairs Ministry official B.K. Bansal and his son Yogesh, who killed themselves after being harassed and tortured by officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the agency continues to sit on findings of the internal probe, if any, that it was forced to announce against its officials after pressure from the media.

Bansal, who along with his 31-year-old son was found dead at his residence on 27 September, was being investigated and questioned by the CBI for his alleged role in a corruption case. His wife and daughter, too, had committed suicide on 22 July, three days after Bansal was arrested by the agency.

Bansal, in his suicide note, had named several CBI officials for making “my family life hell”, including Sanjeev Gautam who is a Deputy Inspector of General in the agency, Superintendent of Police Amrita Kaur, Deputy Superintendent of Police Rekha Sangwan and Investigating Officer Harnam Singh, apart from an unnamed head constable.

This newspaper sent a set of queries on the matter to the newly appointed CBI director Rakesh Asthana, which went unanswered. CBI spokesperson R.K. Gaur, when contacted regarding the status of the inquiry, said that he has shared this newspaper’s query with seniors and would share the response as and when it comes. However, no reply was received till the filing of this story. Email sent to the agency spokesperson Devpreet Singh, too, elicited no response.

Bansal, in his suicide note, had alleged that the DIG had threatened him by saying “Teri wife aur daughter ka wo haal karenge ki sunne wale kaanp jaayenge (such things will be done to your wife and daughter that it will send shivers down the spine of those who hear of it)”.

Agency officials, who spoke to this newspaper off the record, said that “applying pressure” on the accused was a part of the agency’s grilling technique and it would be unfair to put the officers on the stand for doing their work.

“The death of Bansal and his family members was an unfortunate incident. However, it will be wrong to question the intent of the officials who have been named in the suicide note. They were just trying to do their job. If departmental action is taken against our officials for questioning and interrogating the accused, then you can forget about CBI giving any results. No one knew that the family will commit suicide,” a senior agency official said.

According to another agency official, no CBI Director would even think of taking action against officials named in the suicide letter as this would demoralise the agency officials.

“At the most, the agency can ask the official in question to recuse himself from the case, which has already happened in Bansal’s case. I do not expect anything beyond that. The announcement of the internal inquiry was done because of media pressure and nothing major will come out of it,” the official said.

The National Human Rights Commission, too, had taken suo motu cognizance of the incident and issued a notice to former CBI Director Anil Sinha, terming the incident as “human rights violations by the CBI”.

In his suicide note, Bansal had also allegedly stated that the death of his wife and daughter was not a suicide and the Director of CBI should initiate an inquiry against his officers as it was “simply” a case of murder.

“They abused, thrashed and mentally tortured my family constantly. They threatened me after saying that they will ruin the life of my family who will be subjected to such torture that they will ask for death, but will not get it.” Bansal also alleged that his wife and daughter had shared the details of “torture” with friends and neighbours before taking their lives. “Even if I was at fault in the case, why were my wife and daughter pushed to suicide? Someone should conduct a lie-detector test on all of them to know the truth,” he wrote.