BMC official booked on charges of abetment of conservatory worker

A BMC official in Mumbai has been booked on charges of abetment to suicide after a conservatory worker was found dead at his home. The worker's family claims he was not given any work after taking leave to care for his sick daughter and was worried about having to pay the official and two contractors to get work.

MUMBAI:Police have booked a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) official on the charge of abetment to suicide after a conservatory worker was found dead at his home in Jogeshwari on Friday.

HT Image

The family of the deceased worker claimed he was not given any work after he took leave to attend to his sick daughter and was worried about being asked to pay the official and two contractors to get work.

Subhash Sonavane, 44, who worked with the P South ward of BMC, had almost taken a month off from work to look after his 16-year-old daughter who has a cardiac disease. When he returned to work on January 10, his supervisor, whom the family knows as Mr Kottian didn’t let him work, as per their statement to the police. His wife Sangeeta told the police that Subhash had been upset since that day.

On Friday evening, the family found him hanging by the steps of his family’s first-floor house in Jogeshwari. The family took him to a nearby private hospital which directed them to Cooper Hospital. Subhash was declared dead on arrival.

“When the hospital contacted us, we found a letter in the pocket of the deceased. He wrote that he was asked to pay the official ₹10,000. The official had asked for further ₹10,000 for himself and ₹5000 each for two contractors to regularise his attendance which was not being marked despite going to work for the past eight days,” informed an official from Oshiwara police.

Based on the letter, the police have booked the official only known as Mr Kottian, and the two unknown contractors under section 306 (abetment to suicide) of the Indian Penal Code.