The 24-year-old failed IAS aspirant from Bangalore who committed suicide on May 10 had apparently created a charade of having qualified for the IAS among his family and friends by fudging documents,postings on social media and even flying with his parents to the UPSC in Delhi. But in the end,unable to keep up his pretenses,he may have taken his life,investigations have revealed. V Y Manjunath,the son of a clerk in a government education department,was found dead at a trekking spot in Kodagu district,some 220 km from Bangalore,on May 10. Based on a statement by his father V P Yadava Murthy,Kodagu police initially said that Manjunath was depressed over a UPSC mix-up in his IAS main exams results and could have therefore committed suicide. With the UPSC clarifying on May 13 that Manjunath failed to get through his IAS preliminary exams in May 2012 and could not have even attempted the main exams in October 2012,it has emerged that the youth may have fudged exam documents such as exam hall tickets to lead his family on to believe that he had cleared the preliminary and main exams. Manjunath,an engineering student from a Bangalore college,may have fudged the exam hall tickets to indicate that it belonged to a candidate who had cleared the exam and even took his poor parents to the UPSC office in New Delhi and pretended to attend an interview. In a statement to the police,the victims father had stated his son was depressed over the UPSC putting up the name of another candidate against his roll number in the final list of selected candidates. He also said that his son was upset by a lack of response from the UPSC, said Kodagu SP M N Anucheth. Although Manjunaths fathers statement to the police was a matter of investigation,it was construed in the media as a fact and the clarification by the UPSC has put the case in new light. We are treating this as a case of suicide and are not really concerned with the reasons for death. Only if there is suspicion of some criminal intent in the matter would there have been reason to pursue it further. In any case we have asked for all documents of the UPSC exams from the family, the SP said. The fact that the young IAS aspirant had created a delusion of passing the IAS preliminary exams and that this was greatly appreciated by his father who aspired for a lot through the eldest of his three sons was evident last year when Manjunath in a Facebook post claimed to have cleared the prelims and that his father had finally appreciated him. Finally my Dad said very good son, says an August 2012 Facebook post by Manjunath claiming success in the IAS preliminary exams. Last month,Manjunaths father had taken a loan of Rs 30,000 to take his family to Delhi for the UPSC interview that his son claimed he was going to attend. Manjunaths family is still confused by his death and are in possession of copies of only the UPSC documents shown to them by their son. Manjunath is suspected to have burnt the original documents since police have found burnt documents at the spot of his death. From bus ticket stubs and other things we have found that he came to the spot where he committed suicide on his own. There is evidence that he had been drinking at the site in the night. There were also some burnt documents, the Kodagu SP said.
