OROP suicide: Ex-serviceman Ram Kishan Grewal's body taken to his hometown

The body of ex-serviceman Ram Kishan Grewal, who committed suicide over the delay in implementation of the One Rank, One Pension (OROP) scheme, has been taken to his hometown in Haryana after a post-mortem was conducted at Lady Hardinge Hospital.

According to reports, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi will be visiting the grieving family in Bhiwani.

Rahul had met with the family earlier yesterday and had accused the Delhi Police of illegally detaining and also abusing them.

However, the delay in Grewal receiving the revised pension as per the One Rank One Pension (OROP) was due to problems in calculation at his bank's end and his case could have been resolved amicably if he had directly approached the government, sources said.

 

Sources firmly state that the circumstances surrounding the suicide of Grewal, who took his life by consuming poison, called for a thorough investigation, as a probe is also needed to figure out who was with him when he took the extreme step and also who provided the poison.

It also needs to be ascertained if anybody may have taken advantage of his "troubled mind to provoke him to take the extreme step".

Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar has sought details of the incident from the department of ex-servicemen welfare.

"Saddened by the death of subedar Ram Kishen Grewal. I express my heartfelt condolences. I have asked officials to provide me with details," Parrikar tweeted.

Earlier, Parrikar emphasised that the government was committed to the welfare of ex-servicemen and said a total of Rs 5,507.47 crore has been disbursed under the scheme.

Giving details of the OROP implementation, Parrikar said there were 20,63,763 beneficiaries before July 2014 and that 19,12,520 pensioners have been paid the first installment and 1,50,313 cases are pending verification and authentication of beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, a massive political storm has broken out over Grewal's death as parties are joining forces to come down heavily on the Centre over the delay in the implementation of OROP.