Ballia (UP):
One person was arrested on Thursday in connection with last week’s alleged suicide of a woman panchayat executive officer in Ballia district of Uttar Pradesh, police said.
Driver Chandan Verma has been arrested in connection with the case while a hunt was on to nab the other accused, Additional Superintendent of Police Sanjay Yadav said.
An officer with the Provincial Civil Services (PCS) in Ballia district, Manimanjari Rai (27) was found hanging from the ceiling of her room at her rented accommodation at Awas Vikas Colony on the night of July 6, leaving behind a suicide note saying that she was being falsely implicated in a case.
Rai was the executive officer of the Maniyar Nagar panchayat and this was her first posting to Ballia.
Subsequently, an FIR was lodged against the chairman of Maniyar Nagar panchayat Bheem Gupta, executive officer of Sikandarpur Nagar panchayat Sanjay Rao and four others under Indian Penal Code Section 306 (abetment of suicide) at the Ballia police station on July 8.
The case was registered based on the deceased officer’s brother Vijayanand Rai’s complaint, who alleged that the accused put undue pressure on her for payments and tender for new work.
The 27-year-old officer in her suicide note, which was recovered from the spot, had said that she was “cheated” and had to do “some wrong work.”
The executive officer’s father, Jai Thakur Rai, had claimed that his daughter did not commit suicide but was “murdered” and “hanged.”
“My daughter cannot commit suicide. She was murdered. I don’t know who murdered her. It was done for payment and wrong work in the panchayat. I want justice,” he said.
