Express News Service By

MANGALURU/MADIKERI :In the interview which DySP M K Ganapathy gave hours before his death on Thursday, he said that ex-minister K J George was harassing him in a Mangaluru church attack case. Ganapathy added that politicians had pressured him not to book the miscreants, who belonged to a Christian minority, or name them in the chargesheet.

Ganapathy had attracted controversies during his service. He had faced departmental inquiry in Bengaluru over an alleged fake encounter of a rowdy sheeter in Yeshwanthpur, and for alleged misuse of a seized property in Madiwala. He had come clean in both cases, said colleagues.

SP of Kodagu Rajendra Prasad told mediapersons that Ganapathy was under depression. The deceased DySP was a native of Ranga Samudra near Kushalnagar.

IGP (Western range) J Arun Chakravarthy, who had taken charge a month ago and under whom Ganapathy worked, told Express that Ganapathy was a quiet officer and was one of two DySP grade officials working in the IGP office. He was in charge of departmental inquiries.

“He used to greet me every morning and talk to me about work. I often found him in a subdued mood, but had never enquired further. At work, he was efficient and used to discuss matters with senior officials and seek directions,” said Chakravarthy.

Ganapathy’s former colleagues, who had worked with him in Kadri and Ullal stations, recalled that he joined as a sub-inspector in the police department. He was promoted six months ago as DySP and transferred to Mangaluru IGP office from Bengaluru. But he reported for duty only after three months.

Faced fake encounter charge

During his tenure as police inspector at Yeshwanthpur police station in 2010, Ganapathy was involved in a controversial encounter. Though Ganapathy had maintained that he had fired at the 20-year-old rowdy sheeter Prashanth in self defence, Prashanth’s family had sought a CBI probe, alleging that it was a fake encounter. Ganapathy had also suffered injuries in the incident.