Haryana’s controversial minister of state for home Gopal Kanda submitted his resignation to Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda in New Delhi Sunday evening.
“I have submitted my resignation to the chief minister today evening after he returned from Kolkata,” Kanda told reporters in Gurgaon.
The resignation came hours after Kanda was booked for abetment to suicide after a former air-hostess, Geetika Sharma, committed suicide in New Delhi Sunday. She had, in her suicide note, accused him of harassing her which led to her suicide.
A 23-year-old former flight attendant killed herself Sunday and in her suicide note blamed her former employer and Haryana Minister of State for Home Gopal Kanda for taking the extreme step, police said.
The body of Geetika Sharma, 23, was found hanging in her Ashok Vihar house in north Delhi Sunday morning. She earlier worked in Kanda’s now-defunct MDLR Airlines.
Union Women and Child Welfare Minister Krishna Tirath hinted at a National Commission for Women probe into the matter and Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda assured “appropriate action”.
In her suicide note, the victim blamed Kanda for breaking her trust, police said, adding that a case of abetment to suicide had been registered against him.
Tirath told reporters: “We will send this case to the National Commission for Women for investigation. I will write a letter to the chief minister of Haryana.”
Hooda earlier in the day said that “appropriate action” would be taken in the case.
Kanda owned the now defunct MDLR Airlines where Sharma worked as a flight attendant. After the airline ceased to function in 2009, Sharma was given a job in another company owned by Kanda.
According to the victim’s brother, Gaurav Sharma, his sister was being constantly harassed by Kanda and his colleague Aruna Chadha, both mentally and psychologically.
“My sister quit her job and decided to work with Emirates and had gone for training in Dubai but Kanda wrote to them accusing my sister of having a bad character which led to her termination,” he told reporters.
She was being asked by Kanda to join his company again, added Sharma.