Madhya Pradesh Police on Friday booked a former Dainik Bhaskar Group employee for allegedly abetting the “suicide” of the print media group editor, Kalpesh Yagnik, on July 12, PTI reported. Yagnik was found lying on the floor at the newspaper’s Indore office.
While the newspaper claimed that the 55-year-old suffered a heart attack, a postmortem indicated that many of his bones were fractured, The Indian Express reported. He died while being treated at a private hospital. Police identified the woman as Saloni Arora.
Five days before his death, Yagnik had submitted a letter to the police claiming that the sacked employee had threatened to implicate him in false cases if he did not reinstate her immediately, Additional Superintendent of Police Shailendra Singh told the news agency.
While the police said Yagnik killed himself, no suicide note was recovered at the office.
Additional Director General of Indore Range Ajay Kumar Sharma said Yagnik had met him a few days before July 12 to discuss his concerns about Arora’s claims but did not initiate any legal action against her.
Arora’s services were reportedly terminated after she was transferred to Mumbai a few months ago. The police booked Arora for extortion, criminal intimidation, abetment to suicide under the Indian Penal Code and IT Act for allegedly threatening to circulate in electronic form sexually explicit images. Superintendent of Police (East) Avdhesh Goswami said the police are searching for Arora, the English daily reported.
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