Police initiated a case of abetment to suicide against unknown persons after the wife of Ashok Das, 48, a booth-level officer (BLO), lodged a complaint with East Jadavpur police station on Friday.
Ashok, a resident of 15, Ahalya Nagar, Mukundapur, was found hanging from the ceiling of his room on Thursday. He was taken to hospital around 9.40am, where he was declared dead.
Till late Thursday, Ashok’s family had not lodged any complaint. A local BJP leader had alleged that the local Trinamool councillor of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation had pressured and threatened him, prompting the suicide.
On Friday, Ashok’s wife Sudipta filed a police complaint alleging that unknown persons had caused her husband to take his own life. A case was drawn up based on her complaint, and an investigation was initiated.
A senior Kolkata Police officer said: “We have found a suicide note in his possession, where the deceased allegedly blamed the extreme workload for the ongoing SIR (special intensive revision of Bengal’s electoral rolls) process. The handwriting in the note is being examined to find out if it was that of the deceased.”
“Based on the wife’s complaint, a case has been drawn up under Section 108 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS),” the officer added.
Section 108 of the BNS states that if a person dies by suicide, whoever abets it shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of up to 10 years and shall also be liable to a fine.
The police said Ashok was an assistant teacher at Baharu High School in Jaynagar, South 24-Parganas. He was a BLO at polling station number 110 at Chitkalikapur Free Primary School in East Jadavpur.
“In the course of the investigation, we will speak to the deceased’s wife and other members of the family to find out what could have possibly led him to suicide,” the officer said.
On Thursday, BJP leaders had circulated a purported audio clip that allegedly had the voices of two women talking, one of them claiming that her husband had died because of pressure from a Trinamool leader.
Neither Sudipta nor other family members of Ashok could be reached to confirm the allegations.
BJP leader Sajal Ghosh, who circulated the clip, alleged that Ananya Banerjee, the councillor of Ward 109, had threatened the BLO against striking out illegal names from the SIR list.
Banerjee refuted the charges, saying there were 57 parts under her jurisdiction as a councillor of Ward 109 and that reporters should enquire with all the BLOs to find out whether she had put any of them under pressure.
On Friday, a section of Trinamool leaders said party general secretary Abhishek Banerjee had enquired about the family of the deceased.
Abhishek is also said to have directed local party leaders to visit Ashok’s family during the day and stand by them “in this hour of crisis”.