IRS officer, kin death: Appears to be suicide, say Kerala police; one of the victims is JPSC topper

Kochi/Ranchi: The Kerala police on Saturday said the mysterious deaths of an IRS officer and his kin here appears to be a case of suicide, as per the initial inquiry.

The postmortem of the three bodies were carried out here at Government Medical College Hospital, days after the Customs official and his sister were found hanging inside their house here while their mother's body was also found there.

One of the victims, Shalini Vijay who was summoned by a court in a CBI case earlier, was a state government officer in Jharkhand. A Personnel department official in Ranchi said there was no information about her since 2020 after she went to Kerala on vacation.

The deceased have been identified as Maneesh Vijay (43), an IRS officer and additional commissioner with Central Excise and Customs in Kochi, his sister Shalini Vijay, and their mother, Shakuntala Agarwal.

According to police sources, Shalini had recently received court summons directing for her appearance in Jharkhand on February 15 in connection with a case investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation. She was an accused in the case pertaining to alleged irregularities in her appointment in the Jharkhand government service, sources added.

She was the topper of the first batch of the Jharkhand Public Service Commission (JPSC) and her last posting was in Garhwa as district social welfare officer, the official in Ranchi said.

While Maneesh and Shalini were found hanging, Shakuntala was discovered dead on her bed with the body draped in a white cloth, and flowers sprinkled over it.

According to Kerala police, preliminary findings suggest the siblings died by suicide, as per the preliminary postmortem reports on Saturday.

As per the initial probe, Shakuntala died by suicide first and the siblings offered some rituals and took the extreme step later, an officer said.

The police found that Maneesh had purchased flowers on February 14. They also found an entry in his diary dated February 15, instructing that certain documents be handed over to his younger sister, who is currently in Dubai, the officer said.

Police added that their younger sister arrived in Kochi on Saturday, following which the autopsy has been conducted.

A detailed probe is underway, police said.

Maneesh Vijay was residing at the Central Excise Staff Quarters at Kakkanadu, here.

The officer had been on leave for a few days, but when he failed to return to work, colleagues visited his residence on Thursday night.

Upon detecting a foul smell, they looked through an open window and spotted one body hanging. Police were immediately alerted, and upon entering the house, they found a second body hanging in another room.

Subsequent searches led to the recovery of another body lying on the bed in another room.

The family had been residing in the quarters for the past year and a half but reportedly kept to themselves, maintaining limited interaction with neighbours.

In Jharkhand's capital Ranchi, a distant relative and president of Vijayvargiya Vasiya Sabha, Sanjeev Vijayvargiya said the family of Maneesh and Shalini have their ancestral house at Tulsi Chowk in Doranda in the city.

The family has been a part of Vijayvargiya Samaj but there was hardly any contact after they moved to Kerala.

"Shalini's grandfather Nemi Chand was posted in BPSC, Patna. Her father Uttam Chand worked in Bokaro Steel but he died at a younger age....Shalini also had a flat at Ranchi's Radium Road," Vijayvargiya, who is also a former deputy mayor of Ranchi, told PTI.

He said Shalini's mother Shakuntala Devi was a professor in a college in Bokaro.

Shalini's uncle Prem Chand told reporters that they received the information of his relatives' death late on Thursday.

He also expressed surprise over the incident.