IAS officer commits suicide in UP

Singh, who was posted as principal secretary (housing) in the UP government, had returned from a function on Saturday night and allegedly shot himself around 1:30 am on Sunday. “No suicide note has been found from his residence,” Lucknow police chief Prem Prakash said.

A 1978 batch officer of the Indian Administrative Service, Singh was known as a jovial officer and enjoyed going to parties, family sources said.

His suicide came as a shock to his family members, who alleged that he had been facing tremendous pressure due to some political interference in official work — the department he headed played a key role in the construction of memorials and parks in Lucknow.
Media persons were not allowed to enter the bureaucrat’s residence and the post mortem was completed within three hours of the incident.

Meanwhile, some of Singh’s batch mates blamed the incident on the emerging work culture in Uttar Pradesh. “Too much political interference puts tremendous pressure on the officers,” they said on condition of anonymity. Former bureaucrat and now a Congress MP from Barabanki P L Punia  demanded a CBI probe into Singh’s death.