UP: Woman cop kills self, constable held

The victim, who was posted at the office of Ballia Special Prosecution Officer (SPO), had allegedly hanged herself in her barrack on Reserve Police Lines campus on Monday.

An FIR under Section 306 (abetment to suicide) was registered against Prashant and Archana on the complaint of the victim’s father at Kotwali police station of the district.

In the FIR, the father alleged that earlier in the month, his daughter had told him about her two former colleagues who used to harass her mentally and physically. He suggested her to complain about the harassment to her seniors, instead she ended her life, he added.

“My daughter was posted at Pakdi police station earlier and whenever she came home on vacation, she would tell about her mental and physical harassment by her colleagues, Prashant Singh and Archana Maurya. As she was upset over the matter, we applied for her transfer. She was then sent to the office of the Special Prosecution Officer in Ballia, but even there she wasn’t left alone and the harassment by the two continued,” the father alleged in the FIR.

“When she last came on the second Saturday of this month (September 14), she started crying and said the the two are still harassing her. I suggested her to inform her seniors, but on Monday I got to know about her death. Prashant and Archana are responsible for her death,” he said in the FIR.

Ballia Additional Superintendent of Police Sanjay Kumar Yadav said that as per the investigation so far, Prashant and the victim met at Pakdi police station, after which he started harassing her through texts and phone calls.

“The woman constable was then transferred to the SPO office, but he still used to call and text her. Constable Archana was also involved in this. And the victim probably used to think that the two are spreading rumors about her. However, the allegation of sexual harassment is little hard for us to confirm as the victim is now dead. We have arrested Prashant, while Archana is absconding and has switched her phone off,” said Yadav.

The victim’s father, a resident of Jaunpur, said that though his daughter told him about the harassment, he had no idea that it was so serious, otherwise he would have asked her to leave her job.

The victim was youngest of her four siblings. After her recruitment in 2018, Pakdi police station was her first posting.