Atul Subhash was found dead at his Bengaluru flat last morning
New Delhi:
A 34-year-old man died by suicide at his home in Bengaluru, shortly after recording a video accusing his estranged wife and her family of harassment. Bengaluru police have also found a suicide note and registered a case of abetment of suicide following a complaint.
Atul Subhash, originally from Bihar, was found dead at his home in Manjunath Layout in Bengaluru. Neighbours found him hanging after breaking into the flat. A placard that read, “justice is due” was found in his room. His brother Bikas Kumar told police that Atul’s estranged wife had filed false cases against him and his parents and that he was mentally upset.
Atul has made serious allegations against his wife, her family members and a judge in Uttar Pradesh’s Jaunpur in a video. He has also left behind a letter addressed to the President, in which he criticised the criminal justice system and flagged a trend of false cases. In another note, he has said he pleads not guilty to all the charges brought against him by his wife. These include charges under the Dowry Prohibition Act and relevant sections such as causing hurt or cruelty against a woman under the Indian Penal Code. “I humbly request the court to stop harassing my parents and brother in these false cases,” he said.
In the video he recorded before dying by suicide and in the note he left behind, Atul Subhash said he married in 2019 after a match on a matrimonial website. The couple had a son the next year. He has alleged that his wife’s family would repeatedly demand money running into several lakhs. When he refused to give more money, his wife left the Bengaluru home with their son in 2021.
The next year, Atul wrote in the note, she filed a case against him and his family under multiple sections, including murder and unnatural sex. She alleged that he demanded dowry of Rs 10 lakh and this put pressure on her father and he died of a heart attack. “This is some poor bollywood plot. She has already confessed that her father was suffering from long term illness in her cross examination. Her father was getting treated from AIIMS for the last 10 years for heart disease, diabetes etc. Doctors gave him few months and hence we got married quickly,” he has said. This case, he said, was subsequently withdrawn.
Atul has said that his wife and her family first demanded Rs 1 crore to settle the case, but later hiked this to Rs 3 crore. He has detailed a court exchange in which he said that when he told the judge that men are dying by suicide due to false cases, his wife replied, “Then why don’t you?” At this, he said, the judge laughed and asked her to leave the room. Atul has also alleged that the judge said he “must think about his family” and demanded Rs 5 lakh to “settle the case”.
Atul narrated another exchange with his mother-in-law in which she allegedly asked why he had not died by suicide yet. When Atul replied that how would they get money if he died, she allegedly said, “Your father will pay. Your parents will die after you, and your wife will get the money.”
Atul also said his wife and her family didn’t let him meet his son after his wife left with him. Raging against the law dealing with such cases, he wrote in his suicide note, “The more I work hard and become better at my work, the more I and my family will be harassed and extorted and the whole legal system will encourage and help my harassers… Now, with me gone, there won’t be any money and there won’t be any reason to harass my old parents and my brother. I may have destroyed my body but it has saved everything I believe in.”
Atul Subhash also shared a link of his video on X and tagged its CEO Elon Musk and US President Elect Donald Trump. “I will be dead when you will read this. A legal genocide of men happening in India currently. A dead man is requesting Elon Musk and Donald Trump to save millions of life from woke Ideologies, Abortion, DEI and restore freedom of speech in India,” he said in a post.
