Workplace harassment leads to death of UP Agriculture dept employee

A 48-year-old employee of the Uttar Pradesh Agriculture Department allegedly committed suicide by lying down in front of a moving train here apparently due to harassment by his boss, police said Wednesday.

The incident took place on Tuesday when Ram Bahadur, a tubewell operator, did not go to his workplace and instead laid on a railway track where he was run over by a goods train coming from Bareilly, Superintendent of Police Dinesh Tripathi said.

A suicide note was also recovered from the deceased in which he accused his boss, deputy director of the agriculture department, Prabhakar Singh, of harassing him. "Sahab bahut pareshan karte hai (The boss harasses me a lot)," the SP quoted Bahadur as having said in the suicide note.

The tubewell operator's wife, Mayadevi, alleged that Ram Bahadur was under stress as Singh did not accept his leave requests and used to harass him. Enraged over the incident, Ram Bahadur's co-workers placed his body on a road in Lodipur and blocked the route in the evening.

A case was registered against Singh late in the night, the SP said. District Magistrate Amrit Tripathi termed the allegations against Singh as "very serious".

He said the chief development officer will be handling the probe.