A day after a successful allottee in DDA’s recent housing scheme was mysteriously found dead near his house in this Rajasthan village, the local police said it was an accidental death, after the victim fell off the stairs after a few drinks.

Hari Singh’s family members, though, are sensing foul play.

Singh, a daily wage labourer who worked at the Bayana mandi, was found dead around 7.30 pm Friday.

The police are yet to register an FIR in the case. Bayana Station House Officer (SHO) Aas Mohammad said on Saturday that Hari Singh died after he slipped accidentally from the stairs of a house that is a few blocks away from his home. “He had sustained injuries in the forehead,” SHO Mohammad said.

Singh lived in Kolipada, ward number 4 of Bayana.

Newsline had on Tuesday (January 6) spoken with Hari Singh about the allotment, and the subsequent irregularities alleged in the allotment of flats under SC/ST quota. In a report published on January 7, Singh had claimed to have signed the application form on instructions from the local councillor.

“I never applied for a form, and I never paid any application money (Rs 5,678),” he had said. “I was told to sign the papers by the local councillor.”

Singh’s wife Kishen Devi today said that he left home on Friday with a bottle of local liquor around 5 pm and headed for a vacant house nearby, “where he usually consumes alcohol regularly”.

On Friday, Bayana police had said that the death was caused by an accident after Singh consumed alcohol. But doctors at the government hospital in Bayana said the autopsy did not find traces of alcohol in Singh’s body. Dr Bharat Meena, part of the team that conducted the postmortem, said, “As per initial tests, he was not under the influence of alcohol. There is an L-shaped mark on his head.”

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