A day after a police complaint was registered against him, Surat city BJP vice-president P V S Sarma allegedly attempted suicide by hanging at his friend's house in Navsari on Sunday night, the police said on Monday. Sarma, 57, is out of danger, according to doctors. Police sources said the BJP leaders driver, identified as Venkatesh, found him hanging and took him to Mahavir Hospital in Surat, 20 km from Navsari. Inspector Prashant Brahmabhatt of Navsari rural police said, “We have started a probe into the suicide attempt of P V S Sarma.” On Saturday, Surat Income Tax Department had registered a complaint of cheating at Umra police station against Sarma for allegedly faking circulation figures for his newspaper, 'Satyam Times', to claim government advertisements under DAVP. Inspector K B Zala of Umra police said, "We were looking for him and learnt that he had attempted suicide. We don't know the reason (behind this attempt).” Last month, the I-T department had conducted searches on Sarma's properties in Surat, Mumbai and Thane, near Mumbai. The search operations came three days after he had tweeted about alleged irregular transactions by a jewellery brand on the night demonetisation was announced in November 2016. Sarma had then sat on a dharna outside his house in protest against the search operations. Sarma, who was a senior income tax officer for 18 years since 1990, had taken VRS in 2007 to join the BJP. He is in charge of the party's IT cell. He is also director (finance and taxation) on the board of several companies in Surat and runs the vernacular daily in the city.
