A Kerala police officer facing impending arrest on the charge of pushing a man to death after a parking brawl was found hanging lifeless at his home on the outskirts of the capital Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday.
Deputy superintendent of police B. Harikumar was wanted in a murder case after he allegedly shoved Sanal Kumar, 32, in the path of an onrushing vehicle that knocked him down on November 5 in Neyyattinkara in the southern tip of Kerala.
The officer has been absconding since November 6. On Tuesday morning, when Harikumar’s mother-in-law, who lives next door, went to feed his pet dog, she saw his body hanging from the ceiling.
Harikumar had wrongly parked his car while he called on his friend Binu, a financier. Around 9.45pm, on seeing the officer coming out of Binu’s home, Kumar had protested the manner in which Harikumar had parked his car by blocking a part of the road.
In the heat of the moment, Harikumar pushed Kumar. A fast-approaching car hit Kumar who later died of injuries.
The owner of a restaurant where Kumar just had dinner is the main witness in the case. The security cameras at Binu’s home also captured the incident, making it easy for the police to book the officer for murder. While Harikumar and Binu escaped the scene and fled from the state, passers-by, including an ambulance driver, took the wounded Kumar to hospital where he died.
Protests erupted in the state, where police brutality has triggered controversies that often assume political overtones, and intensified as there was no trace of the officer even after one week of the incident. The victim’s wife, Viji, had started a sit-in at the spot where her husband fell.
She wound up the protest after news of the officer’s suicide spread. Viji termed the officer’s suicide as “God’s will”” but promised to continue her fight until the arrest of Binu.
The police had on Saturday arrested Binu’s son Anup and another man. Anup was arrested for booking a cab for the two to escape to the neighbouring Tamil Nadu.