Express News Service
Patna: A coach has been booked for abetment of suicide by a female basketball player of Kerala employed in the Indian Railways under Danapur division of the East Central Railway in Bihar’s capital Patna. The coach, Ravi Singh, has been accused of mental and sexual harassment.
The victim, Lithara KC, 23, was found hanging in her flat at Gandhi Nagar under the jurisdiction of Rajiv Nagar police station in Patna on Tuesday. A suicide note written in Malayalam was recovered from the room in which she was found hanging with a ceiling fan.
The station house officer (SHO) of Rajiv Nagar police station Neeraj Kumar Singh said that the coach has been booked under section 306 (abatement of crime) of the Indian Penal Code. “The investigation is on and evidence is being collected to substantiate the charges against the accused,” he told this reporter over the phone on Saturday.
The police swung into action after Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote to his counterpart in Bihar Nitish Kumar on Friday, requesting the latter to conduct an in-depth investigation into the death of Lithara. “I write this letter to invite your kind attention to the unfortunate incident of the untimely death of Miss Lithara, a native of Kozhikode district in Kerala, who is employed in Indian Railways in Patna,” said Vijayan in the letter.
Earlier, the relatives of the victim met the chief minister of Kerala and sought his intervention to unravel the mystery behind the death of the basketball player, who was honoured by the East Central Railway on International Women’s Day this year.
The SHO Neeraj said the victim’s body was handed over to the relatives after postmortem examination. “They also submitted a written complaint against the coach Ravi Singh alleging that he used to harass her mentally and sexually, which prompted her to end her life by hanging herself,” the SHO said.
Barely a few hours of the suicide by Lithara, another railway employee identified as Avinash committed suicide by hanging himself in his house at Dwarkapuri under Danapur police station in Patna on Tuesday evening. Avinash was posted in audit section of DRM office at Danapur. He is survived by a four-year old daughter and his father Vijendra Sharma is a former ward councillor.
