By Ramphal Kataria
A Death Foretold: How the System Broke ADGP Y. Puran Kumar — and Then Looked Away
Executive Summary
The blog investigates the death by suicide of ADGP Y. Puran Kumar, a senior IPS officer in Haryana, as a case that exposes deep-seated institutional rot, caste discrimination, and administrative impunity within the state’s police and bureaucratic systems.
On 7 October 2025, ADGP Kumar allegedly shot himself at his Chandigarh residence, leaving behind a note accusing Haryana’s DGP, Chief Secretary, and Home Secretary of sustained harassment, humiliation, and caste-based discrimination. The letter cited repeated professional victimisation — denial of postings, isolation, and humiliation in official and social spaces — despite his exemplary service record.
Kumar’s death came days after a shocking incident in Rohtak, where his official vehicle was intercepted by two junior policemen, his security officer was abducted, and a coerced confession video was circulated online. Despite repeated complaints, senior police officials failed to act, reflecting systemic breakdown and deliberate neglect.
The delayed registration of FIR and dilution of charges — with caste atrocity provisions omitted — intensified public outrage. Prominent national and state leaders, including Rahul Gandhi, Ramdas Athawale, Chirag Paswan, Bhagwant Mann, Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, and Charanjit Singh Channi, issued statements condemning the Haryana Government’s inaction and demanded an independent, court-monitored probe.
Under mounting political and public pressure, the state placed the DGP on “leave,” but no significant accountability followed. The incident soon spiraled further when ASI Sandeep Kumar, one of the officers involved in the Rohtak interception, also died by suicide — leaving a controversial video defending the same superiors accused by the ADGP.
The article situates both deaths within a broader critique of structural casteism, bureaucratic impunity, and moral collapse in governance, arguing that the system not only failed to protect an officer of the law but also erased his dignity in death.
Ultimately, it calls the episode not a personal tragedy but an institutional murder — one that indicts the political leadership, police hierarchy, and bureaucratic culture that silences dissent, punishes integrity, and normalizes caste-based subjugation even at the highest levels of state power.
I. The Final Message
On the afternoon of 7 October 2025, Additional Director General of Police Y. Puran Kumar locked himself in the sound-proof basement of his Chandigarh home and used his service revolver to end his life. Minutes earlier, he had sent a WhatsApp message to his wife — Amneet P. Kumar, a senior IAS officer accompanying the Haryana Chief Minister on an official visit to Japan — with a “final note.”
That note, now public, read less like a farewell and more like a charge-sheet: eight senior officers of the Haryana Police and top bureaucrats were accused of “blatant caste-based discrimination, targeted humiliation and administrative persecution.”
He named the DGP Shatrujeet Kapur, former DGP Manoj Yadav, SP Rohtak Bijender Bijrania, the Home Secretary Rajeev Arora, the Chief Secretary and many other senior police officers and bureaucrats, alleging that a caucus of civil-police power had suffocated him professionally since 2021.
II. A History of Humiliation
The torment, as reconstructed from official correspondences and testimonies, began when Kumar, then IG Ambala Range, visited a local temple in Shahzadpur police station limits — a routine cultural visit that drew an extraordinary reaction. The then DGP Manoj Yadav sought an explanation: “Why did you visit the temple?”
Kumar saw it as a coded insult — a Dalit officer being questioned for entering a space of ritual authority. He approached the Home Secretary seeking redress. His plea was filed away. A writ petition to the Punjab & Haryana High Court yielded no relief.
Transfers followed — first to Home Guards (a non-cadre post), then to postings without vehicles or staff. False complaints were floated. When he met the then Home Minister Anil Vij, a committee was indeed formed, but the “nexus” ensured it never met.
In his final note, Kumar wrote:
“They wanted me to learn my place. Every complaint, every transfer, every humiliation was meant to break me.”
III. The Incident That Triggered the End
A week before his death, while still serving as IG Rohtak Range, a shocking incident occurred.
On orders yet unaccounted for, ASI Sandeep Kumar and another constable stopped the ADGP’s car on the highway, forcibly picked up his gunman Sushil Kumar, took him to the police station, extracted a video-recorded confession in a corruption case — and leaked it.
FIR No. 305/2025 was registered against gunman Sushil Kumar who was picked from the car of ADGP.
Never before in Haryana’s policing history had an officer of ADGP rank been so publicly undermined by his subordinates.
Kumar called DGP Shatrujeet Kapur to report the insult. He was told to “but he hushed up.” He called SP Rohtak — his calls went unanswered.
The leak, the silence, and the institutional complicity broke him.
IV. The Aftermath and the Family’s Battle
When Amneet Kumar’s daughter discovered his body, the police moved swiftly — but not sensitively. The note and phone were seized; the body taken to PGI Sector 16 mortuary. For 48 hours, Amneet fought to have an FIR registered naming those her husband had accused.
Only on 9 October, after persistent protest, did Chandigarh Police register the case — FIR No. 156/2025 — under Section 306 IPC (abetment of suicide) and provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, but column 7 (accused) was left blank and the stringent sub-sections 3(2)(v) not added, rather 3(1)(r) inserted. On the protest by Amneet Kumar, sub-sections 3(2)(v) was added.
Public outrage forced inclusion of the SC/ST sections later, yet no officer was named.
Leaders across the spectrum rallied behind the family:
Rahul Gandhi, after meeting Amneet in Chandigarh, said, “If an ADGP must die to be heard, imagine the fate of the ordinary Dalit citizen. This is not a suicide; it is a bureaucratic execution.”
Ramdas Athawale, Union Minister (RPI-A), met the CM demanding immediate suspension of the DGP and a Supreme Court-monitored probe: “A Dalit IPS officer’s voice was smothered. Justice delayed here will be justice denied to every Dalit officer.”
Chirag Paswan, LJP leader, warned that the silence of the BJP government “will stain the conscience of every constitutional office in Haryana.”
Bhagwant Mann, Punjab CM, called it “a frightening reminder that caste prejudice doesn’t spare even the uniform.”
Charanjit Singh Channi, former Punjab CM, said, “Puran Kumar fought not for promotion but for dignity. Haryana must answer.”
Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, Bhim Army chief, led a candle march in Delhi declaring: “From Rohith Vemula to Y. Puran Kumar — India’s Dalits are dying of the system’s silence.”
Even M. A. Baby, CPI(M) General Secretary, wrote to Prime Minister Modi demanding a judicial enquiry by a sitting Supreme Court judge — reminding him that “institutional discrimination is not a perception but a lived governance reality.”
Under mounting pressure, the Haryana government finally sent DGP Shatrujeet Kapur on leave on 15 October, eight days after the suicide.
V. The Second Death
Barely 24 hours earlier, on 14 October 2025, the man who had intercepted the ADGP’s car — ASI Sandeep Kumar Lather — shot himself at his maternal uncle’s farm in Ladhaut village, Rohtak.
In his video message, he accused the late ADGP of corruption, caste favoritism, and misuse of position. He hailed SP Rohtak and DGP Kapur as “honest officers trying to clean the system.”
Sandeep confirmed on camera that he was the one who had picked up Sushil Kumar and recorded his confession. Chandigarh Police’s SIT had summoned him — he never appeared. Hours later, he was dead.
The police arrived, recovered his note and phone — but let villagers take the body away before formal seizure, a procedural breach that remains unexplained.
The next day, political theatre returned. CM Nayab Saini, Bhupinder Hooda, and Abhay Chautala attended the funeral.
The ASI’s family demanded:
1. FIR against Amneet Kumar, her MLA brother, and Sushil Kumar;
2. Government job for a family member;
3. Compensation and martyr’s status for Sandeep.
Within hours, an FIR was registered in Rohtak Urban Estate PS, fulfilling the first demand.
VI. Political Postures and Selective Sympathy
Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, visiting Sandeep’s family at PGIMS Rohtak, declared that “an attempt to give caste colour to the first incident was inappropriate” — a statement seen as the government’s bid to distance itself from the caste-bias charge and pivot to a corruption narrative.
Yet, as Ambedkar wrote in Annihilation of Caste, “Caste is a notion; it cannot be killed without killing the notion of graded inequality.”
The State’s denial of caste as a factor was itself a form of complicity.
VII. The Anatomy of a System
Two suicides — one of a top Dalit IPS officer, another of a subordinate who served under him. Both videos leaked from police custody. Both families courted by politicians.
But the contrast was stark: where Puran Kumar’s death was met with bureaucratic stonewalling, Sandeep’s was met with swift administrative sympathy.
This selective sensitivity reveals the rot:
1. Files moved only under political duress;
2. Justice calibrated by caste calculus;
3. Officers turned into pawns in a war of perception.
The Chief Minister’s hesitation to suspend his DGP despite overwhelming outrage symbolised the power of the bureaucratic caucus over the elected executive.
If a Chief Minister could not act against his police chief, what chance does an ordinary citizen have?
VIII. Caste, Power, and the Grammar of Governance
The Haryana bureaucracy has long mirrored the feudal hierarchy of its landholding castes. Puran Kumar’s tragedy exposes that this hierarchy extends beyond village borders into the state secretariat.
Ambedkar warned that “administration by caste is a negation of constitutional morality.”
When discrimination within the elite service corps remains unpunished, the message to every Dalit policeman is clear: loyalty will not protect you, caste will define you.
IX. A Cry for Constitutional Redemption
In a rare display of cross-party unity, leaders from Congress, Left, RPI, LJP, AAP, INLD, and JJP visited the bereaved family — each demanding the same thing: the justice. M. A. Baby, CPI(M) General Secretary demanded a Supreme Court-monitored judicial enquiry in his letter to PM.
Rahul Gandhi called it “a mirror to India’s institutional cruelty.”
Ramdas Athawale and Chirag Paswan jointly urged the Prime Minister to ensure “no officer named by Kumar remains in office.”
Bhagwant Mann likened it to “the institutional murder of a Dalit officer.”
Charanjit Channi reminded that “Dalit representation in police remains tokenism when protection is denied.”
But their visits could not wash away the government’s inertia.
X.Two Graves and an Unanswered Question
Nine days, two funerals, and three FIRs later, Haryana stood exposed — a state where justice moves only under televised outrage, where caste denial passes for governance, and where the death of a senior officer is debated for optics rather than truth.
If Ambedkar’s dream was that the law would be “a shield for the weak,” Haryana’s reality shows the shield turned inward — protecting power, not people.
Until caste ceases to be the silent file-note guiding our institutions, another Puran Kumar will die unheard, another Sandeep will be used, and another government will call it “unfortunate.”
References
1. FIR No. 156/2025, Chandigarh Police (Section 306 IPC & SC/ST Act 1989).
2. FIR No. 305/2025, Rohtak Urban Estate PS (Abetment of Suicide — ASI Sandeep Kumar).
3. India Today — “Rahul Gandhi on Haryana cop Y Puran Kumar suicide case, says his death sends wrong message to Dalits.” India Today
4. Indian Express — “Haryana IPS officer suicide: No culprit must be spared, Chirag writes to Saini.” The Indian Express
5. The Print — “Poison in society: Chirag Paswan writes to CM Saini, urges impartial probe into Dalit IPS’ suicide.” ThePrint
6. The Week — “IPS 'suicide' case Athawale says Haryana CM has assured action, wants family's nod for autopsy.” The Week
7. NDTV — “No matter how capable...”, Rahul Gandhi message to Dalits. www.ndtv.com
8. Times of India / others — coverage of ASI Sandeep Lather’s death, Rohtak FIR No. 305 etc. (various). Indias News+1
9. Official statements by Union Minister Manohar Lal Khattar at PGIMS Rohtak (16 Oct 2025).
10. Media reports: The Hindu, Indian Express, Hindustan Times, The Tribune, The Wire, Scroll, BBC Hindi.
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