'Mental illness drove Buxar DM to death'

PATNA: Mental illness, not marital discord, drove Buxar DM Mukesh Kumar Pandey to commit suicide. Or, so believes his father-in-law Rakesh Prasad Singh.
The wailing automobile dealer released the 30-year-old’s 11-page suicide note to buttress his claim at a press conference at his plush apartment in Patna on Thursday.
The note reads: “I am young, I am an IAS officer, I am married in a good family and I am presently well posted as Buxar DM.All the odds are in my favour, then why am I committing suicide? It’s just that I have realised the worthlessness of human existence, the relationships and their entangled webs that have enmeshed us and are capturing us in a vicious cycle of birth, studies, job, marriage, children’s studies, (their) jobs, retirement, death. The only truth is that those who are born will die! So, instead of being captured in this web, it is better to embrace death early and release yourself from the vicious circle of human life…”
The 2012-batch bureaucrat’s beheaded body was recovered from the railway track near Ghaziabad on August 10.
Three days prior to the suicide, he had celebrated Rakshabandhan at his in-laws’ house. “Look at this video... He is dancing like a child,” Singh said, sharing the four-minute video clip in which Pandey is dancing and singing ‘Mach gaya shor saari nagri re..’ of Amitabh Bachchan-starrer ‘Khuddar’ while playing with his daughter lying beside his wife on a bed.
Singh said a sane person could never philosophise the way his son-in-law did. “He was a cold-blooded man who planned his suicide for two days and lied to everyone close to him,” the businessman said.
Pandey in his suicide note wrote he came to Delhi on August 10 to end his life though he had taken leave on the pretext of visiting his ailing uncle. “To my wife, I said I had to attend a Swachh Bharat meeting at Dehradun,” the note reads.
While the tragedy has saddened Singh, the spectre of his 27-year-old daughter’s widowhood has also riled him no end. “The UPSC’s civil services examination is considered the toughest exam that also tests one’s mental and physical fitness... Kya UPSC ko mere damad ka kaayar aur bhagoda swabhav nahin dikha? Ek parivaar ki baat chhodo, aisa aadmi poore zile ka bhaar kaise uthata?” asked the sexagenarian bitterly.
Singh trashed the references to the “family fights” in another suicide note recovered from the railway track. “Where was the question of any fight between his parents who reside in Assam and their daughter-in-law who lives in Bihar? My daughter went to Assam only twice for brief periods during her marriage of four years,” he said and described the officer as “a split personality” who profusely showered love and affection on his wife in the second suicide note.
“My love, my life. You will be the most affected and distraught by my death but dear it is not your fault at all and never feel guilty about it! It’s just that I have lost the will to live. We both love and cherish each other greatly but there is a stark difference in our personalities. This difference can never be erased and will continuously lead to bickering and collision! I love you darling, but my time has come and I have to go. I will miss your pure love, surrender and warmth,” wrote the officer in his second suicide note recovered from room number 742 of Hotel Leela where he had checked in after landing in Delhi a day before his suicide.
Singh said he procured the second suicide note through his connections in the Delhi Police “who have mysteriously chosen not to put it in public domain”.