Patna: Chief minister Nitish Kumar has ordered a probe into the death of Tauqeer Akram, 46, a deputy collector posted as officer on special duty to the Buxar district magistrate, who was found hanging in his room on Sunday.

Nitish has instructed chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and principal secretary, home, Amir Subhani to investigate.

Akram's mother alleged her son was under duress due to workload and was seeking a transfer. "Akram used to share his pain with us," Nazma Shakeel said.

She alleged that top officials were demanding bribe for her son's transfer.

"My son was defeated by the corrupt system," the mother said. "He had not received his salary for the past eight months. " She said her son was finding it difficult to run the family, and the household was running on her pension.

The general administration department is responsible for transfers.

Akram's father Haq Nawaz Shakeel said: "I saw him (Akram) moving in the room around 1.30 am. He told me he had indigestion, and told me to go to bed."

When the father woke up around 4.30am to offer namaz, he found his son's room locked. "After a while I knocked to wake up him but he didn't respond. I informed the neighbours who rushed to the spot to find him hanging," Shakeel said.

Akram, who had joined the service in 2005 through the examination conducted by the Bihar Public Service Commission, was holding additional charge of the district land acquisition officer and district minority welfare officer. His colleagues said his total monthly salary without any deduction was around Rs 80,000.

Buxar sub-divisional officer (SDO) Gautam Kumar said Akram, a native of Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, had joined the district administration in June 2015.

"The police have registered a case of unnatural death," said Bhojpur superintendent of police (SP) Avkash Kumar, who also holds additional charge of Buxar SP. "The viscera has been preserved and sent to the forensic science laboratory for test."

Patna zonal IG N.H. Khan said prima facie it appears to be a case of suicide, but "the district SP has been instructed to gather call details of his mobile phones and also talk to the officer's relatives."

A team of experts from the state forensic science laboratory collected evidence from Akram's rented house in Veer Kuer Singh Colony.

In August this year, a 2012-batch IAS officer Mukesh Kumar Pandey, who was posted as the Buxar district magistrate, had committed suicide near Ghaziabad.