Chandigarh, Jan 16 (IANS): The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Thursday ordered an inquiry against senior BJP leader and former Haryana Education Minister Ram Bilas Sharma over allegations of abetment of suicide by a 26-year-old man.

It ordered that an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer should conduct the probe.

Hearing the petition, the high court directed that the deceased's body should be cremated within three days.

The petitioner, Kailash Chand Sharma, accused Sharma, the former state party President, of harassing his son, Mohit Sharma, and forcing him to commit suicide.

The petitioner has not cremated his son, who died on December 13, 2024, and kept the body at a hospital mortuary in Mahendragarh district.

The family said they would cremate the body only after Sharma, his son Gautam, and their two associates were booked for harassment and abetment to suicide. The deceased's father has sought directions to register a first information report (FIR) against them. He has also sought to get the case probed by an independent agency like the CBI.

The petitioner said his son was falsely implicated under the POCSO Act and was kept in jail for three months before he was granted bail by the court.

Even in the jail, Sharma’s henchmen beat him up.

The petitioner claimed to have met the Chief Minister and he assured him of taking action, but nothing was done under the "influence of Ram Bilas Sharma". The petitioner has sought directions to hand over the body of his son only after the registration of an FIR against Sharma and others. He claimed that he shared good relations with the former minister from 1996 to 2016 and even gave Rs 22 crore to him.

The man committed suicide by hanging and a post-mortem examination was conducted a day later. Since then, his body has been lying at the Civil Hospital.