Karnataka offers money, job to family of DSP who killed himself

An investigation by the CID into the kidnapping and Handibag’s subsequent death has revealed that the officer was unaware that the money he was asked to collect was ransom for Gowda’s release.

IN AN unprecedented move, the Karnataka government has decided to award compensation of Rs 30 lakh to the family of a police officer who committed suicide on July 5 this year. The kin of police officials who commit suicide are usually not entitled for compensation.

The decision to award the compensation, as well as a government job for his wife, is being seen as a sign that the government agrees with investigation findings that Deputy SP Kalappa Handibag committed suicide on July 5 at Belgaum after he was falsely implicated by the gambling mafia in Chikamagalur district in the kidnap of suspected betting operator Tejas Gowda. Handibag was posted as DSP, Chikamagalur (Rural).

The Congress-led government took the decision to award compensation on August 10, it is learnt. Gowda, released by the alleged abductors after he paid a ransom of Rs 10 lakh to DSP Handibag, subsequently filed a police complaint, naming the DSP as one of those involved in his kidnapping.

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An investigation by the CID into the kidnapping and Handibag’s subsequent death has revealed that the officer was unaware that the money he was asked to collect was ransom for Gowda’s release.

According to investigators, Praveen Khandya, a local Bajrang Dal leader, had allegedly asked him to hand over the money. In a probe report submitted to the government recently, the CID indicated that the kidnapping was executed by Khandya, who is yet to be arrested, in connivance with another betting operator named Kallmane Nataraj and a gang hired from Bengaluru. The Bajrang Dal leader had got Gowda kidnapped to recover Rs 35 lakh the latter owed to Nataraj, the probe has found.

“Handibag’s family… will get Rs 30 lakh compensation and his wife will get a government Grade-C job on compassionate grounds considering their economic condition,” Karnataka Law Minister T B Jayachandra said.

The family lives in a small house built under the government’s Indira Vikas Yojana housing scheme.

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The government has not taken a similar sympathetic view on the suicide of another DSP, M K Ganapathi, who was found dead on July 7. Ganapathi had accused a state minister and two senior police officers of harassing him. The CID, which is probing the case, says that Ganapathi had never raised the issue of alleged harassment in any communications with either the police hierarchy or the government.

The state is also yet to decide on awarding compensation in a third high-profile suicide case — of IAS officer D K Ravi in Karnataka, in March 2015. The CBI is probing the case.

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