‘IAS DK Ravi possibly committed suicide, suffered big loss in real estate business’
BENGLURU: IAS officer DK Ravi, whose mysterious death on March 16 rocked Karnataka, had possibly committed suicide by hanging himself after incurring huge losses in the real estate business, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has concluded in its preliminary report.
The CBI has reportedly ruled out the murder or abetment of suicide theory and concluded that IAS officer DK Ravi and some of his batchmates had invested huge amount of money in his real estate business in which they had suffered huge losses.The CBI examined the forensic evidence and also questioned the doctors involved in the post-mortem proceedings before coming to the conclusion that DK Ravi’s death is “as apparent, a case of suicide’’ in its Preliminary Enquiry report.
Significantly, the CBI also mentioned in its report that DK Ravi had apparently telephoned a woman IAS batchmate only once on the day of his alleged suicide contrary to claims that he had called her 44 times.The agency on Wednesday clarified that it is yet to arrive at any conclusion as far as the unnatural death of the 2009-batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer was concerned and that the probe is still on in this regard.
Several officers of the state government who were apparently behind such leaks are under the scanner of CBI as it wants to identify those who are trying to sully the image of the deceased officer, the sources added.They said it was possible that people leaking these inputs to the media were actually acting on the instructions of some persons who feared exposure during the course of the probe.
“CBI would like to state that all aspects/hypotheses relating to unnatural death of Ravi are being inquired into. The matter is under investigation and conclusion is yet to be drawn in the matter,” CBI spokesperson Kanchan Prasad said here today.Meanwhile, the agency sent all the forensic evidence, including the photographs taken after Ravi’s death, his viscera sample and other evidence recovered by Karnataka Police to the Central Forensic Laboratory here for a detailed analysis.
The sources said that according to the report of the autopsy conducted by the state government the death occurred due to hanging, but the agency has not yet concluded whether or not it was a suicide.They said that only the first round of questioning of all the persons concerned, including family members, close IAS batchmates, driver and other members of the probe team, has been done while the report from CFSL is awaited.
It would be difficult to ascertain the cause of death until a detailed forensic report is available, they added.Ravi, who was posted as Additional Commissioner, Commercial Tax (Enforcement), was found dead at his residence in Bengaluru.The matter snow-balled into a major controversy with Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah initially refusing to seek a CBI probe into the case. However, following a public outcry, the case was handed over to the central investigative agency.
