The Arunachal Pradesh Police on Monday arrested an Indian Administrative Service officer in the town of Naharlagun in connection with the alleged suicide of a 19-year-old boy on October 23, The Hindu reported.
Naharlagun Superintendent of Police Nyelam Nega told the newspaper that Talo Potom, posted as a secretary in the Public Works Department in Delhi, was arrested after he surrendered at the Nirjuli police station at about 7.30 am.
He was then produced before a judicial magistrate and remanded to 14 days in judicial custody.
Naharlagun, along with Itanagar, form the Itanagar Capital Complex.
The 19-year-old boy, Gomchu Yekar, had been found dead in Papum Pare district’s Lekhi village on October 23, The Hindu reported. After his death, a first information report was filed based on his father’s complaint.
As per the FIR, several notes had been recovered from the room where Yekar died, in which he accused Potom and Likwang Lowang, an executive engineer in the state Rural Works Department, of sexually exploiting and harassing him over an extended period, the newspaper reported.
In his notes, Yekar claimed that continuous humiliation, coercion and threats drove him to death. His family also claimed that the 19-year-old had written about how he had contracted HIV, The Indian Express reported.
Hours after his name was linked to Yekar’s death, Lowang died by suspected suicide at his home in Tirap district in the intervening night of October 23 and October 24, The Indian Express quoted Nega as saying.
On Saturday, the police issued a lookout notice for Potom in connection with Yekar’s death as he had been absconding since the incident. The IAS officer was also listed as the prime accused in the FIR registered in the matter.
The police had been searching for Potom since October 24.
“While he is posted in Delhi, he [Potom] was on leave and was in Arunachal because his daughter’s wedding is supposed to take place on October 28,” The Indian Express quoted the superintendent of police as saying. “On Monday, he himself surrendered to the police in Itanagar, after which he was arrested.”
Nega said that Potom had been booked for abetment of suicide and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to negligent or malignant actions likely to spread the infection of “any disease dangerous to life”, the newspaper reported.
Shortly before handing himself over to the police, the IAS officer in a video statement denied the allegations against him, according to The Indian Express. Potom claimed that he had no personal relations with Yekar, who he had appointed as a contractual staffer.
In the video, the IAS officer also claimed that he had blocked Yekar’s contact number after the 19-year-old made several calls to him after his transfer to Delhi, asking for assistance with certain extortion-related cases, The Indian Express reported.
