Gujarat High Court transfers suicide probe to senior police official

Acting on petition questioning the shoddy probe being carried out by the police in a suicide case in the Sabarmati Jail staff quarters, the Gujarat High Court has transferred the entire probe to an officer not below the rank of assistant superintendent of police. The direction in this regard was issued by the single judge bench of Justice Sonia Gokani, who took up the matter for hearing.

Notably, the wife of the deceased works with the Sabarmati Jail and some of her friends also are in the police department, as a result of which the brother of the deceased has moved the high court with a plea seeking fair probe in the case. The petitioner has complained to the court that the probe in his brother's death in not in the right direction and requires in-depth investigation. He has also alleged that since the accused in the case are working with police department, a fair probe in this regard has not been carried out.

As per the case details, Kalpesh Parmar committed suicide on January 15 by drinking poison outside his Sabarmati Jail quarters. His wife, who works with Sabarmati Jail, had a few days back ousted her husband. It has been also claimed that that friends of Parmar's wife are also police officials who harassed him, as a result of which he had to commit suicide and named them in his suicide note.

Although an FIR in this regard was registered by the Ranip police station based on the suicide note, but since the investigators and the accused were known to each other, the probe was allegedly not carried out properly. Notably, the petitioner has demanded that the probe in the case should be carried out by an independent agency.