In a shocking incident, a go-getter officer of Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terror Squad (ATS) committed suicide by shooting himself with his service revolver in his office on Tuesday. The cause of the suicide is yet to be ascertained.
49-year-old Rajesh Sahani, Additional Superintendent of Police (ASP) ATS, reached his office in Gomtinagar around 12 noon. He asked his driver to get his service revolver and told him that he was leaving for an important operation. The driver went to fill fuel in the vehicle. As soon as the driver left, Sahani locked himself in the office room and shot in his temple. Officials present in the office rushed towards the room upon hearing the gun shots. They broke open the door to find Sahani lying in a pool of blood.
Sahani's suicide comes less than three weeks after Mumbai top cop Himanshu Roy committed suicide in a similar manner at his residence on May 11. Roy was battling depression and took the extreme step.
Prior to the incident, Sahani had taken leave from the office and was supposed to visit Mumbai along with his family. Stories doing the rounds suggest that Sahani was under work pressure. Apparently, he was summoned to the office by one of his seniors as he was about to go on leave with his family. Earlier too, Sahani was rebuked by the senior officer. Sahani resorted to the extreme step in an upset state of mind, it is said.
The police have launched an investigation into the matter and will take a couple of days to reach any conclusion.
Yet another theory links Sahani's suicide to the recent arrest of ISI agent Ramesh Kanyal from Uttarakahnd in which the former had played a key role. It is learned that differences had cropped up among the ATS officers over the remand of Kanyal.
Sahani was a journalist before joining the provincial police service in 1997. He originally hailed from Bihar. Sahani was serving in the police service for the past 21 years, during which he worked in important departments, including STF, ATS and NIA (Delhi).