Jaipur: For more than six months, the allegations suspended lecturer Manohar Lal Bhadu made before his death by suicide in Feb this year lay largely unanswered.His family questioned the way he was treated during an exam-leak investigation. The Special Operations Group said a “high-level” probe would be conducted. After that, the matter went quiet.On Sunday, the arrest of SOG Additional SP Mukesh Kumar Soni in an alleged Rs 2 crore bribery case brought Bhadu’s allegations back into sharp focus.Bhadu, 35, died after jumping in front of a moving train near Arjun Nagar railway crossing in Jaipur in Feb. In a purported suicide note, he accused Soni, who was then investigating an SOG case, of turning one investigation into a series of cases in which he was repeatedly named, threatened and intimidated.According to the note, Bhadu’s name did not figure in the FIR in the first case and was not mentioned in the chargesheet either. He wrote that Soni questioned him along with six or seven others. After Soni was transferred, Bhadu claimed, the case remained closed for about a year.His troubles, the note said, began again after another person was arrested in a separate case.Bhadu alleged that Soni contacted the new investigating officer and instructed him not to name anyone else. He claimed the officer was told that Bhadu could be implicated in four cases, threatened, intimidated and made to do “anything”.Bhadu said his name was later added to two more cases. He also alleged that after he was caught while appearing for his own examination, he was made an accused in three or four chargesheets and was picked up from outside and implicated.After Bhadu’s death, SOG said it would conduct a high-level probe. However, there was no reported action against the officer over the allegations made in the note.The questions resurfaced Sunday after candidates circulated the purported note on X following Soni’s arrest. Some accused Soni of conducting a “witch-hunt” against Bhadu. One user also asked whether an operation of the kind alleged by Bhadu could have been carried out by Soni alone.The Anti-Corruption Bureau, which arrested Soni in the alleged Rs 2 crore bribery case linked to the Udaipur 272-plot scam, said Bhadu’s death is not part of its present investigation. The agency is currently examining the alleged bribe and the roles of Soni and his alleged middleman, Sajjan Singh Jain.
