Hyderabad, Sep 25 (IANS): A driver of Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) has died by suicide allegedly due to the harassment by officials.

P. Ashok (38), a resident of Kesaram village in Chevella mandal (block) of Rangareddy district near Hyderabad, hanged himself when no one was at home.

Ashok resorted to the extreme step on Saturday after dropping his wife Lavanya near a field where she was working as an agriculture labourer. After sometime he telephoned her that he was ending his life and asked her to take care of their children.

Lavanya rushed home but by then Ashok had hanged himself. She lodged a complaint with the police that he took the extreme step due to harassment by the TSRTC officials.

Ashok was working as a driver of a cargo bus of TSRTC. After the bus he was driving suffered damage, officials had removed him from driving duty and as a punishment posted him on parking duty at depot during the night time.

He had told Lavanya that the officials were harassing him to pay Rs 30,000 towards the damage caused to the bus. She told police that he was mentally upset over this and it finally drove him to suicide.

However, TSRTC officials denied harassing the driver. Mehdipatnam Depot manager Suryanarayana said Ashok had gone home after his duty on September 21 and the next day was his weekly off. After learning about the damage to the bus, the depot manager assigned him night duty at parking on September 23.