Kolkata: A 47-year-old Jadavpur BLO, Asoke Das, a schoolteacher, was found hanging from his bathroom shower with a towel on Thursday morning.
Bengal BJP immediately released an audio conversation on its X handle in which his wife is heard claiming that a local Trinamool worker (BLA), at the instigation of the local Trinamool councillor, was threatening the victim not to delete names from her part for the ongoing SIR. The councillor rubbished the charges.
His wife, Sudipta, did not speak to the media. However, his sister-in-law, Madhurima Das, while speaking to TOI, claimed they did not want to bring politics into this for now. The brother of the deceased, Tapas Das, who works at a hotel in central Kolkata, said there was definitely some mental pressure as his brother had to work till 2 am and then wake up by 5 am on most days. "But, we did not anticipate that he would end his life in this manner," he said.
Police said Asoke was an assistant teacher at Baharu High School in South 24 Parganas. He was serving as the BLO for booth 110 at Chitkalikapur FP School in East Jadavpur. Kolkata Police commissioner Manoj Verma inspected the residence and reviewed preliminary details. Cops initiated a probe to ascertain the cause of death and whether any external pressure played a role.
According to the family, Asoke did not leave behind any suicide note. "Even on Wednesday late evening, he went to the market with his wife. He ensured his son got ready for school on time on Thursday. He is a student of class IX at a central Kolkata English-medium school. A little after 8 am, he went inside the bathroom. After a significant amount of time, he did not come out. His wife then began knocking on the door. We decided to break it open and found him hanging," claimed Madhurima.
Family members rushed him to a private hospital near Bypass, where doctors declared him dead.
The viral audio clip, meanwhile, records a conversation where the deceased's wife is heard mentioning that Asoke was receiving threats from the Trinamool councillor of ward 19, Ananya Bandopadhyay, and her aide, Raju Das, and that the latter even threatened to harm her and her son, for which they even set up CCTVs at their home. BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya alleged, "The constant fear of physical violence against his family pushed Das into extreme mental distress."
Councillor Bandopadhyay said, "There are 57 parts in my ward with 57 different BLOs. You need to go and talk to them to see if they faced any pressure or threats. BJP is trying to make the audio go viral. This is nothing but a conspiracy. It has no real validity. The fact remains that the BLO was doing his job well and, as seen across the rest of the state, they were under pressure from ECI." Trinamool Jadavpur MLA Debabrata Majumdar claimed that the BLO died by suicide due to the EC's short-sightedness and unplanned SIR.