Bihar MLA demands CBI probe in IAS officer's suicide case

According to police, the body, with the head severed with a suicide note was recovered

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A Bihar legislator on Friday demanded a CBI probe into the alleged suicide of Buxar District Magistrate Mukesh Pandey, whose body was found near the rail tracks in Uttar Pradesh.

"I strongly suspect that Mukesh Pandey had not committed suicide but was murdered. It is a stage-managed conspiracy," Sanjay Kumar Tiwari, Congress legislator from Buxar, told IANS here.

"This is the second case of mysterious death of an IAS officer in Uttar Pradesh. Three months ago, another IAS officer was found dead there," he said.

According to police, the body, with the head severed, was found at 9 p.m. on Thursday near Kotgaon crossing in Ghaziabad and a suicide note was recovered.

The note said that he was fed up of his life and had lost "belief in human existence".

"I am committing suicide in District Centre area of Janakpuri in west Delhi... by jumping off the 10th floor of the building. I am fed up with life and my belief on human existence has gone, my suicide note is kept in a Nike bag in room 742 of a five-star (name withheld) hotel in Delhi. I am sorry, I love you all! Please forgive me," said the note, according to Senior Superintendent of Police H.N. Singh.

Singh said it was not immediately known at what time or how Pandey committed suicide.

Pandey, an IAS officer of the 2012 batch, took charge as District Magistrate of Buxar on August 3, 2017. He was earlier posted as Deputy District Collector at Katihar. His first posting was as Sub-Divisional Officer, Balia, in Bihar's Begusarai district.

Hailing from a village in Saran district, Pandey had not yet shifted to his official residence in Buxar and was staying at the district circuit house.

After his matriculation and higher secondary education in Assam, Pandey graduated in English from Guwahati's prestigious Cotton College. He secured 14th rank in the 2012 Union Public Service Commission Examination.

He had married the daughter of an influential Patna businessman two years ago and is survived by his wife and two-month-old daughter.