A businessman under investigation in an Enforcement Directorate case and his wife were found dead at their residence in Sehore district of Madhya Pradesh on Friday morning.
Manoj Parmar and Neha visited a temple in Susner on Thursday with their three children and returned late at night, after which the children went to bed. On Friday morning, when the couple did not wake up, the elder son went to check on them and discovered that they had died by suicide.
The police arrived around 8.30 am and sent the bodies for post-mortem.
According to the police, Parmar left behind a five-page note in which he accused ED officers of assaulting him during a raid. He claimed that after the ED team spotted a picture of senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi at his home, an official told him this was the reason for the raid.
Addressing Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in his purported suicide note, Parmar wrote that he was compelled to take the extreme step as the ED was harassing him because he “joined you and worked for the Congress”.
“After my death, the responsibility of these children is yours and of the Congress, so a message goes out that the party stands with its workers,” he wrote.
ED officials in Bhopal refused to respond to the allegations. The ED panchnama report in the case states that “the entire search was done in a peaceful manner without hurting any religious or personal sentiments of the persons present at the premises. No kind of damage to the property was done.”
Sehore Superintendent of Police Deepak Kumar Shukla told The Indian Express that police have have not yet registered an FIR. “We are investigating and have not yet spoke to the family who were busy with the final rites,” he said.
Shukla also said police were verifyuing the veracity of the note left behind by Parmar. “We are not calling it a suicide note. Until we investigate we can’t comment on the same. We have recovered some documents which will be investigated,” he said.
Senior Congress leader and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Digvijaya Singh, in a post on X, wrote, “Manoj Parmar’s children had gifted a piggy bank to Rahul ji during Bharat Jodo Yatra. Manoj’s house was raided by ED… According to Manoj, the raid was conducted on him because he is a Congress supporter. I had also arranged for a lawyer for Manoj. But it is with great sadness that I have to say that Manoj was so scared that he and his wife committed suicide this morning. I demand a fair investigation from the Director, ED.”
BJP spokesperson Ashish Aggarwal responded, “Doing politics over death is the old vulture-like character of Congressmen. They are misusing this to further their personal interests.”
The case
The ED had initiated their investigation based on an FIR and chargesheet filed by the CBI under various sections of the Indian Penal Code against Parmar and a senior branch manager of Punjab National Bank.
According to the FIR and chargesheet, approximately Rs 6 crore in loans were obtained under the Pradhan Mantri Employment Generation Programme and Chief Minister Yuva Udyami Yojana. However, these funds were allegedly diverted and misused.
The FIR accused Parmar of forgery and criminal conspiracy. He was accused of facilitating loans worth crores under a government scheme by providing fake quotations, bills and TIN numbers, despite not being involved in the loan business.
In September 2022, the Madhya Pradesh High Court dismissed a petition filed by Parmar to quash the CBI FIR registered in December 2017. Parmar’s petition argued that the local police had filed a similar case in October 2017.
Recent raid
On December 5, the ED’s Bhopal Zonal Office conducted search operations at four premises in Sehore and Indore as part of their investigation against Parmar and others under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002.
In a press note dated December 7, the ED said, “The searches targeted the residences of key individuals who were beneficiaries of the proceeds of crime or who actively aided and abetted such individuals in a bank fraud scheme.”
The ED claimed that during the searches, “various incriminating documents and details of immovable and movable properties were found and seized.”
“Statements of certain individuals were recorded, and a bank balance of Rs 3.5 lakh was frozen. The ED also identified four immovable properties linked to the key persons involved,” it said.
Parmar’s son claimed the agency had “created mental pressure” on his father. Parmar’s brother and Harshapur’s sarpanch Rajesh reiterated this.
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