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Saturday, March 10, 2012

'My son was an Honest officer... This is the price he had to pay'

After days of persuasion, Ganga Charan, 80, had finally agreed to spend this Holi with his grandson, Narendra Kumar, a 2009-batch IPS officer posted in Morena district of Madhya Pradesh. Ganga Charan reached his grandson's government quarters in Morena on Thursday morning, and Kumar promised to come back in an hour to join him for lunch. He never did.
A 32-year-old sub-divisional police officer of Banmore in Morena district, Kumar had intercepted a truck carrying illegally quarried stones. As he tried to flag it down, the vehicle allegedly mowed him down, killing him instantly.
Lalpur village, barely 50 km from Mathura, mourned as Kumar's last rites were held in the open fields owned by Kumar's family today morning. Vehicles and a sea of mourners spilled over as wife Madhurani Tewatia, an IAS officer posted in Gwalior, lit fire to the pyre. She is expecting their first child and was on maternity leave in Delhi when she heard of the killing.
Tewatia's father S P Singh, posted in the Delhi Police, was the first to receive the news on Thursday afternoon.
"Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh called to say he would visit us soon, but what is the point of that?" said Kumar's father Keshav Dev, a sub-inspector posted in Aligarh. "We have asked for a CBI inquiry, but he refused to commit on that saying the CBI is not under him. My son was an honest police officer and despite being offered bribe several times by the mining mafia, he was trying to curb illegal mining in the area. This is the price he had to pay."
Kumar's uncle Rajpal Singh told The Indian Express, "There was a gunner and a driver with Narendra when he first got information about the truck carrying illegally quarried stones. According to the gunner, Narendra had placed barriers on the road to stop the vehicle but it took a detour and ran along the field next to it. Narendra started running after it and clung onto it but fell off and the truck ran over him."
However Kumar's father questions this version, pointing out that the truck could not have run over his torso if he was clinging to it from the rear. "At the most his legs would have been crushed. But there were tyre marks all over his torso. Also why did the gunner and driver not try to save my son," Dev asked.
Alleging that the BJP government protects the mining mafia, Dev believes Kumar's death could be a conspiracy by a certain party leader.
The grieving family said Tewatia too has been targeted and, despite having won the best trainee award, was shunted from Jabalpur to Gwalior. "We have already lost one family member because he was honest. We do not want to lose another," they said.
Born in 1979, Kumar did his Masters in Economics from Aligarh Muslim University before deciding to try for the civil services. Having joined the IPS in 2009, he was posted in Bihar and Ujjain before joining office in Morena about 45 days ago.
"Since Narendra's wife was in the Madhya Pradesh cadre he managed to get a posting here," another of Kumar's uncles, Harpal Singh, said.
Calling Kumar a pride of their village, Singh added: "He is the only one not only from this village but from among all other villages here to have made it to the IPS. Despite having climbed the ladder, he did not forget his roots and visited us often." 

courtesy-The Indian Express.

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