In Bareilly district, the son of a retiring woman cook with Provincial Armed Constabulary (PAC) has been booked for fraud following her mysterious death on the day of her retirement. The incident, unfolding in the 8th Battalion PAC, indicates manipulation aimed at securing a government job under the dependent quota, officials said.
According to the complaint filed by Ram Nath Rana, the camp in-charge of the 8th Battalion PAC, Chandra Devi, a cook posted with the battalion, was taken ill on February 27 and was referred to the district hospital. Doctors there advised her son, Prahlad Singh Mehar, to shift her to a more advanced facility. Prahlad then took his mother to a private medical college in Bhojipura, which subsequently referred her to the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI) in Lucknow. Chandra Devi was admitted to the ICU at SGPGI.
On February 28, in the presence of duty officer Chiranshu Kumar, Prahlad got his mother discharged alive at 5:33 PM and obtained a discharge slip. However, in a startling contradiction, the death certificate Prahlad later submitted to the department stated that Chandra Devi had died at 5:23 AM the same day – nearly 12 hours before the official discharge. This clear discrepancy in the timeline led to suspicions of foul play and possible manipulation of records.
The motive behind this alleged manipulation appears to be to secure a government job through the compassionate appointment policy reserved for dependents of deceased employees. The Cantt police have registered a case of fraud against Prahlad and begun a thorough investigation into the matter.
In the days leading up to her retirement, Chandra Devi had reportedly fallen gravely ill. During this period, Prahlad and his wife allegedly began spreading the story that she had been emotionally devastated after a cow she had nurtured went missing while grazing. According to the family, Chandra Devi stopped eating and drinking following the loss of the cow.
The sequence of events and contradictions in the official records fuelled speculation that Chandra Devi’s death may have been orchestrated by her own family in a desperate attempt to exploit the government’s dependent job policy.
Additional superintendent of police, Manush Pareek, said, “On the basis of the complaint received, an FIR has been registered under relevant sections of the BNS including 318 (cheating), 336 (forgery). The entire case is being investigated in detail.”