Another suicide note,another minister

Through the three years,police and lower courts dismissed petitions by Chhaviram Sahus wife Hemlata,who alleges he had been harassed by the minister. She pleaded with Chief Minister Raman Singh and Governor Shekhar Dutt,too,to act against the minister. The matter remained under wraps until recently,when the Bilaspur High Court ordered a lower court to consider the case afresh.

Unlike in Haryana where minister Gopal Kanda was forced to resign after airline executive Geetika Sharmas suicide,in Chhattisgarh both the ruling BJP and the minister are unruffled. Chandrashekhar Sahu has just returned from Brazil. His diary dispatches with his photograph have found space on the front page of a local daily. Rio ki kahani Chandrashekhar ki jubaani, it reads.

Asked how Chandrashekhar Sahu remains in the cabinet despite the court orders to take up the suicide afresh,state BJP spokesperson Ramsewak Painkra says,Its a judicial process. The law will take its own course. The government is yet to issue a statement on the issue.

The minister himself describes the events following the suicide as politically motivated. He says Hemlata is being remote-controlled by the Congress. Congressmen who lost in the elections are now using the woman as a shield. The woman is under the control of these people. Courts have already decided the case, Sahu says. He dismisses allegations of abetment to suicide.

Hemlata gives several instances of the minister allegedly harassing her husband for over two years leading to his suicide. Villagers of Manikchauri echo her.

Chhaviram Sahu worked in an agriculture mandi as a clerk. Chandrashekhar Sahus brothers were his neighbours. Hemlata is an anganwadi worker in the village,earning Rs 1,700 per month. Her daughters Menika and Roshni,14 and 12,are in a government school. Around 40km from Raipur,Manikchauri is one of the three villages from where suspected cases of unwanted hysterectomy surfaced recently.

Hemlata says the enmity with the ministers family began with the Dussehra festival of 2008. The minister was giving a festival speech in the village. As he stepped down,my husband who was playing the dholak went up and said,You only make promises and never fulfil them. The ministers sons and relatives beat him up severely. The police took him away and kept him in lockup. He was released after a day,badly beaten up, she says.

Thereafter the ministers family began harassing my husband and my family. In March 2009,the agriculture department transferred Chhaviram Sahu to Bhopalpatnam in Bijapur,over 450km from his village. He submitted an application expressing his desire to remain where he was.

In a petition to the police,the chief minister and others,Hemlata wrote the minister called Chhaviram Sahu to his home on June 30,2009,and beat him up. On July 2,he left home for the mandi. The next day,his body was brought home. He had hanged himself from the ceiling of his office.

The suicide note wrote of Chhaviram Sahus mental torture and sleepless nights. Though it blamed the minister,it did not mention Chandrashekhar Sahu by name. The Indian Express has a copy of the note.

Hemlata then approached the police but was told that since the minister was not named in the note,it could not be inferred that the reference was to Chandrashekhar Sahu. My husband clearly wrote about the ministers birthday and other details. Was there any other minister in our neighbourhood and whose birthday fell on July 2? she says.

The trips to police stations and courts began. A lower court at Razim and the sessions court at Gariband refused to admit the case while the police did not take it up for months. Then a police inquiry absolved the minister in a seven-page report and noted that the suicide note was written in an emotional state after consuming liquor.

The suicide note included Chhaviram Sahus apologies to his family and advice to a nephew to take care of his wife and daughters. I am fed up with life… what can I do when I am being subjected to so much torture? I have not been able to eat or sleep for the last 20 days. He urges his daughters to study hard,achieve something in life and remove this blot on your papa.

The note contains future guidelines for his relatives…there is nothing that suggests that he was being tortured, the police inquiry concluded. A copy of this report,dated November 1,2009,and prepared by thana-in-charge Gobra Navapara,too has been accessed by The Indian Express.

Since her husbands death,Hemlata says,the minister has made life difficult for her and her daughters. He is trying hard to get me removed from anganwadi service,and has filed complaints against me, she says. The minister has denied this too.