The death of contractor and BJP worker Santosh Patil, which has led to the resignation of senior Minister K.S. Eshwarappa, has brought back memories of the death of Dy.SP M.K. Ganapathy in July 2016, leading to the resignation of then Minister K.J. George, and that of IAS officer D.K. Ravi.
Ganapathy had given an interview to a local television channel in Madikeri blaming Mr. George and two senior IPS officers and hours later was found dead in a lodge. Though the police initially did not book the Minister and the officers for abetment, they had to after a local court directed them to. Mr. George resigned after that. The case was later transferred to the CBI which gave a clean chit to the three in 2019 and Mr. George was reinducted.
A question similar to what arose after the death of Ganapathy — whether his television interview amounted to a “dying declaration” — is being posed now in Patil’s case. The police are yet to bring on record the WhatsApp message he reportedly sent sometime before ending his life, blaming Mr. Eshwarappa for his death, as a dying declaration. Several BJP leaders have alleged a conspiracy against Mr. Eshwarappa and have expressed doubts about the origin of the message itself.
Circumstantial elimination
A senior police officer, who did not wish to be named, said the investigating officer could only circumstantially eliminate the possibility of someone else sending that message from Mr. Patil’s phone, but cannot expect to prove he sent it. “Elimination can be easily done depending on the mobile’s location, CCTV camera footage showing the access to the room, and time of the message and the possible time of death as per autopsy,” he said, adding finally the veracity of the message was something that the court would decide during trial.
Another senior police official pointed out that WhatsApp message had emerged as a ‘death note’ in the case of Ravi’s suicide. “Ravi had sent a WhatsApp message to one of his colleagues before ending his life, in which he had clearly stated the reason why he was taking the extreme step. The city police, the CID and later the CBI that probed the case easily verified and confirmed that it was he who had sent that message and it was accepted as a dying declaration,” he said.
Public utterance
Senior criminal lawyer C.H. Hanumantharaya, while conceding that the police need to verify the message, said Patil had made the same charge and talked of ending life allegedly due to the Minister’s actions several times earlier too.
“In his letter to the Prime Minister and several media interactions, he had said he will be forced to end his life if bills are not cleared and Mr. Eshwarappa would be responsible for the same,” he pointed out, arguing that this makes it a “material and circumstantial evidence”, with publicly documented history between the deceased and the accused.
