DERA BASSI (PATIALA), May 24: The controversial Punjab Police officer, Ajit Singh Sandhu (52) yesterday committed suicide near here by throwing himself in front of a running train.No foul play has been alleged so far. The police have recovered suicide note written by the deceased declaring: ``Jalil ho ke jeen to changa hai mar jana'' (It is better to die than to live a life of humiliation). The former Senior Superintendent of Police, Tarn Taran, was facing more than 40 cases in various courts besides a recently initiated vigilance inquiry.According to eyewitnesses, Sandhu came to the Indus Valley Country Club under construction near here (20 km from Chandigarh) around 10.30 am on Friday. He was not accompanied by his body guards.After waiting for some time in his car, he walked to a spot on the Kalka-Delhi railway track running besides the club site. At about 11.05 am he stepped in front of the Kalka-bound `Himalayan Queen' resulting in instant death. The train stopped and the Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel accompanying the train reported the matter to the gateman. The Punjab police received information at about 2.30 pm.The identity of the deceased was confirmed from the identity card recovered from his purse. A total of Rs 40 were found in the wallet. He wore white safari suit, white turban and white shoes. The body was cut from the middle.He leaves behind two daughters and a son besides his wife. Senior police officers, including S S Virk IG (Security), S C Jain IG (Zonal), Sanjiv Gupta DIG (Security) and Parmpal Singh Sidhu SSP Patiala rushed to the site. The body was sent to Rajpura for post-mortem.Sandhu was perhaps a police officer most dreaded by terrorists in Punjab after K P S Gill. According to the suicide note, he could not face the humiliation of trials in scores of cases of alleged excesses, in which he faced certain jail and possibly worse.Sandhu came into limelight for liquidating some top terrorists and restoring peace, particularly in the once terrorist hotbed Tarn Taran police district.His career took a nose-dive when instances of police excesses began to surface, including the infamous case of the cremation of nearly 1,000 unidentified bodies in the border districts. These cremations are now being probed by the National Human Rights Commission. For the past few months, he was in news for his repeated indictments by various inquiries and courts. What were once touted as `achievements' began to be termed as `excesses'.
