Bangalore: HAL’s Top Official Ends Life

Bangalore, Oct 12 (DHNS): At a time when the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is going through a turmoil in its higher echelons, a senior executive of India’s biggest aircraft manufacturer was on Tuesday found hanging from a tree branch near Nandi Hills, about 52 km from here.

Sqn Ldr (retd) Baldev Singh, HAL’s Corporate Planning and Marketing Director, used his turban to make a noose with which he hanged himself. It was clear that he had travelled the distance from his residence, HAL Officers’ Quarters, to end his life.

The mysterious death comes in the backdrop of Singh, 58, collapsing in a recent HAL board meeting, though subsequent medical tests revealed he was normal.

Shocked colleagues and batchmates of Singh told Deccan Herald “he could not have taken this step unless he was forced into a situation that could be related to HAL”. Singh took this extreme step just weeks after he was appointed Director, Corporate Planning and Marketing, on August 16.

Wg Cdr (retd) Rajiv Kothiyal, who had worked with Singh for several years on the light combat aircraft programme in the mid-1990s, said: “It is impossible for me to digest that he has committed suicide. Baldev was not the type with a weak heart. He was a happy, full of energy kind of guy, taking things by the stride.”

Sources close to the family said: “He was to travel to Delhi on Tuesday to the Defence Secretary’s (Defence Production) meeting but he had told the family he would not go.”
His death has come as a shock to everyone who had worked with him on the various projects that he was involved in his illustrious career that had seen him don different roles, beginning from his Indian Air Force days.

Just in his last assignment as a test pilot, he has a total flight test experience of over 6,000 hours on over 55 different types of aircraft, including India’s indigenous Intermediate Jet Trainer.

The police suspect depression to be the cause of his death. Chikkaballapur Rural Deputy Superintendent of Police S Chelvaraj said: “He had come determined to kill himself. Initial investigation points fingers at a ‘typical suicide’ case.”

The police, who found Singh’s body near Mirza Circle on the way to Nandi Hills, said they identified the body based on his HAL uniform, and after verifying his debit and credit cards. Chikkaballapur Rural Sub-Inspector Aiyanna Reddy said: “We have found out that he was depressed for sometime now and it is evident from the way the incident was pre-determined.”

Rumours about work pressure having pushed him to the extent of killing himself are rife in HAL. A staffer said: “Everybody is just talking about that (work pressure) here, because we have never known him to be the kind who would do this.”

Reacting to this, HAL Chairman Ashok Nayak said: “I am just coming back from Delhi, I am not aware of anything. I can only say that it is a huge loss for HAL.” There was no official response from HAL till late Tuesday evening.

With the Baldev Singh’s ailing wife Vibhu in a state of shock, his brother Harjinder Singh filed a complaint with the police and has said that the family did not suspect anybody.

The police, quoting the first information report (FIR), said Singh left home around 9 am in the official car (Maruti Suzuki SX-4) and had directed his driver Rajesh to go to Bangalore international airport at Devanahalli.

However, he asked Rajesh to alight from the car near a flyover, took his phone from him on the excuse that his own phone had no battery charge, and asked him to wait there until he returned. “He had said he had to pick a friend up from a place nearby and that he would be back. Despite the driver insisting that he would travel with him, Singh had ordered him to stay back.”

Following a long wait, Rajesh, the police said, reported the matter to the HAL Corporate Office on Cubbon Road, as he was worried about Singh. A message from the corporate office that a director of theirs was missing led to the police to send out wireless messages and eventually find the body when some passersby informed them about the same.

“Going by the incident, it appears to be a pre-meditated move. Why would he take away the driver’s mobile otherwise,” Chelvaraj remarked.

Singh is survived by his wife Vibhu and two sons Mohit Singh and Nimit Singh, both married. Nimit lives in the US and Mohit is in Singapore.