SHIVAMOGGA , 28 MAY

Karnataka Maharshi Valmiki Scheduled Tribes Development Corporation (KMVSTDC) Managing Director, Accounts Officer and Union Bank of India Chief Manager were booked over the suicide of 48-year-old accounts superintendent Chandrasekaran P.

Scheduled Tribes Welfare Minister B Nagendra said the case has been handed over to the CID and an FIR has been registered against KMVSTDC Managing Director JG Padmanabha, Accounts Officer Parashuram Durugannavar and UBI Chief Manager Shuchiswat.

Chandrasekaran, who is posted in Bengaluru, purportedly left a six-page note before hanging himself from a ceiling fan at his residence on Sunday evening, they said. In the purported suicide note, he has held the three officials responsible for his death as well as the alleged misappropriation of around Rs 87 crore, police said. "He alleged that he was 'harassed' by the officials who allegedly used him for 'misappropriation of funds for personal gains'. Later, when he came to know that if an inquiry is initiated and an FIR is registered against him, he would be jailed and that also prompted him to take this drastic step," a senior police officer said.

The deceased accused his senior officers of forcing him to open a parallel bank account to divert unaccounted money from the corporation's primary account, he said in the note. He also alleged that he was directed by a minister and an officer to open a “sweep-in and sweep-out account” that allowed customers to transfer funds between savings and current accounts and link fixed deposit accounts at a bank branch on MG Road in Bengaluru, the police officer said.

The accused government employees are currently absconding, he added. “Whoever is involved in it and however influential they are, we will not spare them. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar have taken it seriously. If the forensic report says the MD had signed on it, then we will suspend him. We will not let the leakage of public money happen,” Minister Nagendra said. —PTI