While people are not willing to believe that IAS officer D K Ravi committed suicide, Bengaluru cops seem to be on overdrive, floating conspiracy theories in the media to allude to the suicide angle.
Some cops have actually called up journalists to give different versions, even while stressing that it was suicide, claims a Hindustan Times report, based on its interactions with city-based journalists.
The 36-year-old officer, who was Additional Commissioner of Commercial Taxes (Enforcement) and was considered upright, was found hanging from a ceiling fan in a room at his Bengaluru apartment on Monday evening.
A female reporter working for a Kannada news channel gave some insights as to how the police contacted her.
"I was reporting live on the night of the death and one senior police officer kept calling me repeatedly. When I picked up the phone, she gave me a long story about Ravi's personal life. I immediately broke the story, but I still found it strange that such a senior officer would call me," she said.
Another journalist working for a Kannada publication said a sub-inspector called him to tell that Ravi had an unhappy life, citing the phone call records and text messages made by Ravi. However, when the reporter was asked if he saw those messages or call records, he said no.
Some TV channels also ran a story for some time on the night of 16 March that a suicide note was found at the spot. This, even though, both the city police commissioner M N Reddi and the state home minister K J George denied the existence of any such note.
Ravi's father in-law and Bangarpet MLA Hanumantharayappa raised questions on the police investigation. He said: "Proper procedure was not followed immediately after the body was found. There was no independent witness. Why did the police commissioner tell the media that this was a suicide minutes after he visited the spot?"
