Bhadrachalam: Civil supplies manager dies by suicide; FIR names six

A civil supplies manager in Paloncha died at a Bhadrachalam lodge. His suicide note named six people, including a woman employee and media personnel. Police registered an FIR against the six following a complaint from his daughter and are investigating.

Kothagudem: A civil supplies manager (HP gas), who faced allegations of sexually harassing a woman employee as well as harassment by the employee and her associates, allegedly died by suicide at a lodge at Bhadrachalam in the district.

The deceased, Ananthula Lakshminarayana (56) of Pragathi Nagar at Paloncha hanged himself from a ceiling fan at the lodge on Saturday late evening hours. He purportedly left a suicide note in which he named six persons, including the woman employee as responsible for his death.

---

In the suicide note, he maintained that the woman employee, Rajulapudi Rajitha who works as a data entry operator at Paloncha HP gas office, has troubled him to allow her and other workers to collect extra money from the consumers as well as by diverting LPG cylinders to black market to meet their financial needs. But he resisted their plans to do so.

He said he went on 21-days leave unable to face the harassment from her and meanwhile also tried to get transferred from Paloncha office to some other place. His transfer requests made to the additional Collector and the civil supplies district manager yielded no result, he said.

Lakshminarayana stated that a few days ago, Rajitha’s husband Nayini Rajesh, who works as a reporter for a vernacular daily and few others came to the HP gas office; verbally abused and threatened to kill him.

Later on September 30, they lodged a complaint to the district Collector accusing him of sexurally harassing Rajitha. As the Collector referred to the matter to the internal complaints committee (ICC) an enquiry was conducted on October 16, he said.

The deceased officer, with deputy tahsildar rank, further alleged that Rajesh and others have demanded Rs 1 crore to withdraw the sexual harassment case lodged against him but he refused to yield to their pressure.

Lakshminarayana stated that Rajitha, her husband Rajesh, 10TV reporter Naga Chandu, HP gas employee Kaleem-who also works as a reporter, Big TV reporter Venkanna and TV9 reporter Ravi were responsible for his death.

When contacted Bhadrachalam DSP, M Arun Kumar told Telangana Today that based on the complaint by Lakshminarayana’s daughter an FIR was registered on Sunday against the six persons who were named in the suicide note and the case is under investigation.