<p>The mysterious death of suspended deputy chief medical officer in the family welfare department, Dr Y S Sachan, which the police dubbed as: “suicide by a mentally disturbed official,” on Wednesday evening inside Lucknow district jail is not a solitary incident.<br /><br />Two UP ministers Anant Mishra and Baburam Kushwaha, had to resign earlier after the murders of two heads of the department within a span of six months. Two chief medical officers were killed allegedly after they threatened to expose large scale corruption in the National Rural Health Mission scheme.<br /><br />Earlier also the jails in the state witnessed several ‘such suicides’ by key witnesses and prime suspects. The Dasna jail in Ghaziabad is particularly notorious for such suicides. Last year, Ashutosh Asthana, the prime accused in the Ghaziabad district court provident fund scam, involving several sitting and former judges, including those of the high courts, had committed ‘suicide’ inside the Dasna jail.<br /><br />The post-mortem could not determine the cause of Asthana’s death. Similarly during the previous Samajwadi Party regime, Ravindra Pradhan, the prime accused in the killing of a woman Kavita Chaudhary, had also committed ‘suicide’ inside the Dasna jail.<br /><br />According to sources, around 300 cases of suicides inside the jails in UP were being currently investigated. Only recently the police had claimed that a 14-year old girl had killed herself inside Nighasan police station in Lakhimpur-Kheri district though the second autopsy revealed that she had been strangulated.<br /></p>
<p>The mysterious death of suspended deputy chief medical officer in the family welfare department, Dr Y S Sachan, which the police dubbed as: “suicide by a mentally disturbed official,” on Wednesday evening inside Lucknow district jail is not a solitary incident.<br /><br />Two UP ministers Anant Mishra and Baburam Kushwaha, had to resign earlier after the murders of two heads of the department within a span of six months. Two chief medical officers were killed allegedly after they threatened to expose large scale corruption in the National Rural Health Mission scheme.<br /><br />Earlier also the jails in the state witnessed several ‘such suicides’ by key witnesses and prime suspects. The Dasna jail in Ghaziabad is particularly notorious for such suicides. Last year, Ashutosh Asthana, the prime accused in the Ghaziabad district court provident fund scam, involving several sitting and former judges, including those of the high courts, had committed ‘suicide’ inside the Dasna jail.<br /><br />The post-mortem could not determine the cause of Asthana’s death. Similarly during the previous Samajwadi Party regime, Ravindra Pradhan, the prime accused in the killing of a woman Kavita Chaudhary, had also committed ‘suicide’ inside the Dasna jail.<br /><br />According to sources, around 300 cases of suicides inside the jails in UP were being currently investigated. Only recently the police had claimed that a 14-year old girl had killed herself inside Nighasan police station in Lakhimpur-Kheri district though the second autopsy revealed that she had been strangulated.<br /></p>