E-Paper
52-yr-old trader hangs self at hotel near Clock Tower in Ludhiana
Deceased blamed financial dispute with a firm behind extreme step; suicide note says he had tried killing himself at his house too
A 52-year-old rice trader hanged himself from a ceiling fan at a hotel near Clock Tower in Ludhiana. The deceased was identified as Sanjeev Gandhi, a resident of Anand Nagar in Chander Nagar.
The matter came to light on Wednesday morning when the staff at the hotel, Akash Ganga, went to check room number 102 and found it bolted from inside. Finding no response, the staff broke the door open and found Gandhi hanging from the ceiling fan.
The hotel manager informed the victim’s family members from the contact details provided by Gandhi while checking in on Tuesday and also alerted the police.
Assistant commissioner of police (ACP, central) Waryam Singh and Division Number 1 station house officer (SHO) inspector Rajwant Singh along with his team reached the spot and initiated investigation.
The deceased is survived by his wife and two sons, aged 21 and 17. The body has been sent to the civil hospital for postmortem.
During preliminary investigation, the police recovered two diaries from Gandhi’s bag in the room. One of the diaries had a suicide note in which Gandhi mentioned that he was under stress due to a financial dispute with a firm.
The police also recovered a bottle of leftover whisky along with an empty glass and an open packet of chips from the room, pointing that Gandhi must have consumed some liquor before taking the extreme step.
ACP Waryam Singh said that Gandhi had left his house on Tuesday afternoon by telling his family members that he was going to a gurdwara on the occasion of Gurpurb, but instead checked into the hotel around 12.15pm.
“The deceased mentioned in the suicide note that he had tried to kill himself at home, but was not able to, so he booked the hotel room,” said the ACP, adding that a case of abetment to suicide will be registered against the firm whom Gandhi had mentioned in the note.
Gandhi’s elder son, Aditya, said his father never discussed about any of his business dealings. “We had tried to contact him several times on Tuesday night but he didn’t respond. We thought he might be in the gurdwara and will get late, but received a call from the hotel in the morning,” said a shocked Aditya who was at the hotel along with his neighbours and relatives.
