GS Chawla’s family members outside the Panchkula Civil Hospital’s mortuary on Thursday. (Express photo by Jaipal Singh)

Six people including three officials of the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and three others of a family that purchased his petrol pump near Daun village were booked by the Panchkula police, in relation to the suicide case.

The three HPCL officials include Shalabh Raj Gupta, the oil company’s state level coordinator and chief regional manager (retail) for Chandigarh, Rajiv Bansal, another officer, and Nikhil Sood, the company’s Chandigarh S&A Area Sales Manager. The other three of a family are Vijay Kumar Kamra, his brother Rakesh Kumar and his nephew Ishan.

The HPCL official and the Kamra family has been named in Chawla’s suicide note several times. The note says, “I have committed suicide due to harrassment by HPCL officials Shalabh Raj Gupta, Rajeev Bansal and Nikhil Sood, and Vijay Kumar Kamra, his brother Rakesh Kumar, his son and nephew Ishan. By way of cheating and conspiracy, they snatched my property, which was in the name of my wife Jagjeet Kaur Chawla at Daun on Chandigarh- Kharar road… with the help of Punjab Police. The sales deed was done between 7-11 pm and Shalabh Raj Gupta had forcefully and fraudulently transferred the dealership. I have been a simple businessman who could not fight corrupt of the HPCL officials and the Kamras.” The suicide note goes on to blame six people with their phone numbers attached at the end of the note.

The Panchkula police is yet to even ascertain the identities of the accused men. “Thursday was spent taking care of post-mortem and Friday we remained busy in high level meetings. We will talk to the family to ascertain who these people are, on Saturday. They are HPCL officials is all we know,” said Inspector Lalit Kumar, SHO Sector 5 Police Station.

Chawla took the extreme step in Panchkula despite residing in Mohali, which has raised several questions.
The FIR lodged in the matter states that the suicide note was nine pages long and came with proofs and evidence along with a pen drive attached to it.

The suicide note which was handwritten has been collected and will be assessed by handwriting experts.

It was around 9.30 pm on Wednesday that the Sector 5 Police Station received a call from the Panchkula police control room about a suicide. Chawla, who had checked into Panchkula’s Red Bishop Hotel only two hours back was found hanging in his room. A nine-paged suicide note was also recovered from the room.