A probe has been ordered into the death of a priest whose body was found hanging inside a room at a temple at Ayodhya on Monday morning, reported The Indian Express.
Police identified the deceased as Ram Shankar Das, who worked as a priest of Narsingh temple. He had accused the local police of harassing him before he allegedly died by suicide. However, officials said that the allegations are “baseless” and called him a drug addict.
Das allegedly went live on Facebook and accused two policemen of harassing and demanding money from him, police said. In the purported video, he is heard saying, “They (policemen) are asking me for Rs 2 lakh. I don’t know where to get it from.”
Police said that the priest of the temple, which falls under Raiganj police outpost, had accused two policemen -Raiganj police outpost in-charge sub-inspector Swatantra Kumar Maurya and constable Subhash Singh – of harassing him and demanding money.
Additional Superintendent of Police (Ayodhya) Madhuvan Kumar Singh said that senior SP (Ayodhya) had ordered a detailed inquiry into the case.
Police said that Das was not opening the door of the room despite several knocks. He was staying alone at the temple after head priest Ram Saran Das had gone missing in January.
Ayodhya SHO Manoj Kumar Sharma said on Tuesday that his body was recovered on Monday at 9 AM.
Sharma said he ran into problems with police officials as they wouldn’t let him sell items belonging to the temple like silver or copperware. “After he was stopped from selling items, he couldn’t afford to buy drugs. He was given some money by some police officials too. He was a heavy drug user and because of that, he has committed suicide,” said Sharma, as quoted by IE.
The SHO also said that the Facebook video which is claimed to be a live video was shot at least 10 hours prior to his death.
He added that the body has been sent for post-mortem and no case has been registered so far.