A Sepoy died of gunshot on Wednesday night at the Naval Base in Kochi, headquarters of the Southern Naval Command, which was still to get out of the shadow of a sex scandal involving allegations of harassment against a lieutenants’ wife and wife-swapping among senior officials.
A Navy Press release, issued on Thursday, sad that Sepoy A Radha from the Defence Security Corps was found dead at 10.30 PM Wednesday at the material organization, the Naval Base store department. Radha, hailing from Vellore district in Tamil Nadu, was on duty as sentry at the material organization when the incident occurred, it said.
“A Jawan from the adjacent security post along with the guard commander discovered him dead after they rushed to his post hearing a gunshot,” said the release, adding that a board of inquiry had been constituted to look into the incident. Preliminary assumption is that Radha could have committed suicide. The Harbor Police in Kochi is also carrying out an inquiry.
Meanwhile, the Kerala Police have replaced the head of the team which is investigating the scandal at the Naval Base, Kochi, related to the compliant of the wife of a lieutenant that she was sexually harassed by her husband and his superiors and that the senior officials at the base had been practicing wife-swapping.
The investigating team, which was so far headed by the Circle Inspector of Police, Fort Kochi, would now be led by V Sunil Kumar, Assistant commissioner of Police, attached to the Crime Detachment. The change followed the severe criticisms the Kerala High Court had on Monday unleashed against the police for the lapses in their probe into the scandal.
Sources in the Kochi police said that they were preparing to arrest the lieutenant who had allegedly forced his wife, the complainant, to share bed with his superior officers, as the High Court had rejected his anticipatory bail plea.
Also, the police would inquire into his complaint that defaming e-mails were being circulated against him and his family.
The lieutenant’s wife had on April 2 lodged a complaint with the police stating that her husband had been forcing her to sleep with his superior officers and that she was harassed physically and mentally buy him, his colleagues and his superiors. Even spouses of some of the husband’s colleagues had tortured her for disregarding his demands, she said.
The Harbour Police had registered a case against a Commodore, four lieutenants including the 26-year-old woman’s husband, a Captain (all stationed then at the Kochi Naval Base), his wife and three of the husband’s relatives on various charges including domestic violence, coercion into sexual abuse and unlawful custody.