Navy cadet’s death: Cops find suicide note blaming harassment by superiors

The Indian Navy Academy said it found 26-year-old G Sooraj was ‘unconscious’ on the floor of the academy wing on Wednesday evening, and is believed to have jumped off a building.

A Navy cadet accused his trainers and superiors of mentally and physically harassing him in a note before he purportedly jumped off a building at the Ezhimala Naval Academy on Wednesday.

A navy cadet was allegedly fell off a building at the academy in Kerala. (Representative image)

G Sooraj (26), a native of Tirur in Malappuram district, died of his injuries on Thursday, and police said on Saturday that they recovered a suicide note.

“Four trainers/officers named in the note will be booked for abetting suicide,” a senior police officer of north Kerala said, adding that they had informed the academy authorities of the note.

Sooraj’s family dismissed the suicide theory and accused naval authorities of withholding information about his death. “A born fighter, my brother will not commit suicide,” a sibling of Sooraj said.

The Indian Naval Academy said in a statement that Sooraj was “found unconscious and unresponsive” on the floor of the academy wing by a duty sailor at 5.50 pm on Wednesday.

He was taken to the ICU of the naval medical unit, and shifted to Pariyaram medical college hospital where he developed a cardiac arrest the next day, the press release said.

Sooraj joined the navy as a sailor in 2010. He appeared for the officers’ test in 2013 and joined the Indian Naval Academy (INA) in Ezhimala near Kannur.

His relatives said many officers did not like this and routinely harassed him.

They pulled him up on several occasions citing indiscipline. In 2015 he was terminated from the INA but the Armed Forces Tribunal reinstated him.

He re-joined the academy as an officer cadet in January this year.