Bengaluru: Political secretary to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, N R Santhosh, soon after getting discharged on Monday, denied the claims that he had attempted suicide, according to a report by DH.
It can be recalled that Santhosh, a 32-year-old resident of Dollar’s Colony in Bengaluru and grand-nephew of BSY, was being treated in a hospital after he allegedly tried to commit suicide by consuming several sleeping pills on Friday night.
He was discharged on Monday morning.
Speaking to reporters after being discharged, Santhosh clarified that he had suffered from food indigestion during his cousin brother’s marriage event three days ago.
“I ended up taking a different medicine and got drowsy due to an overdose. My wife rushed me to the hospital. It was just a mistake,” he said, according to the DH report.
Speaking further, Santhosh admitted that he has a habit of consuming sleeping pills and usually takes 0.2 mg. “I should have taken half a tablet, but I took a full one, which made me drowsy,” he explained, refuting the police FIR and hospital’s information that he had taken not one, but 12 sleeping pills.
Stating that he has seen the FIR, he questioned where it was written that he had consumed 12 sleeping pills. It can be recalled that an attempt to suicide case was registered against him after he was found unconscious at his home.
Reports state that police had visited Santhosh in the hospital to take his statement, but he refused to do so before getting discharged.
Countering the FIR copy handed to him by reporters, Santhosh said, “FIR means ‘first information received’. Once I gained consciousness, I gave the right answer,” DH reported.
Asserting that he was not under any pressure to reign, Santhosh said that there is always political pressure, but “I’m not someone who’d take pills because of it”.
He added that he is not depressed and that he has “strong will power”. “The wrestling ring in which I grew up will keep me strong for the next fifty years,” he said as per the DH report.
Responding to KPCC president D K Shivakumar’s claim that a video was behind Santhosh’s suspected suicide attempt, Santhosh said that this is not the first time that the Congress leader has spoken in such a manner. “He has probably lost his mind after their Raja Rajeshwarinagar bypoll defeat,” he said, advising that Shivakumar either get himself “admitted to a hospital or take a break.”
Furthermore, he warned of taking out a protest with one lakh people in the city if Shivakumar says anything against the CM.
On Saturday, Shivakumar had demanded that an investigation be conducted into Santhosh’s alleged suicide attempt, stating that his source had informed him that the latter had distributed a confidential video to an MLC and a minister that resulted in BSY getting blackmailed.
