Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday ordered the CID to investigate whether former police commissioner B G Jyothiprakash Mirji and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central Crime Branch) Devaraj demanded a bribe of `7 crore from Pune stockbroker Ripon Malhotra.
Malhotra (54) hanged himself at his house in Ejipura on June 29, after claiming that he was unable to repay investments running into several crores by the public in his company.
He left behind a five-page letter addressed to the Chief Minister saying he was killing himself due to harassment by the two senior officers, who he said were acting as “recovery agents’’ for the investors. He also said Devaraj had sought a bribe of `7 crore for himself and Mirji (Rs 2 crore + Rs 5 crore).
A photocopy of this letter, which was handed over to an assistant sub-inspector from Viveknagar police station, mysteriously reached the Chief Minister’s office and some media houses on July 1, despite it being in police custody.
Police sources told Express that this indicated two possibilities. “Either someone who doesn’t like Mirji or Devaraj has leaked the letter. Or, there is some unknown partner or accomplice of Malhotra, who sent that letter,’’ a source said.
On his part, Mirji said that he had not seen Malhotra’s suicide note and denied any knowledge about the allegations made in the letter.
Devaraj, meanwhile, denied any wrongdoing on the part of the police.
“We were investigating a cheating complaint against Malhotra from a Davangere businessman Jayakar Shetty (who has been mentioned as Devaraj’s friend in the letter). Five people from Bijapur and Davangere turned up at the then commissioner’s Janata Darshan on June 28. We summoned Malhotra in public and questioned him. We have just done our job and told him to behave properly with investors. Everything else is a lie,’’ Devaraj told Express.
Siddaramaiah told the general body of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee: “I have instructed the Home Department to conduct a CID inquiry into the incident in which senior police officers allegedly harassed the deceased to cough up Rs 7 crore.”
Home Minister K J George told Express, “We will wait for the CID report. Those blamed in the suicide note will be punished if found guilty in the report.”