Senior Karnataka IPS officer RP Sharma, 59, who is posted as Director General of Police Housing Corporation was rushed to a Bengaluru hospital following a bullet injury on Wednesday evening. Police say the injury was caused by accidental firing by the officer himself. The officer has sustained injuries on his chest.
“It's an accidental fire at home. He has given in his own handwriting. He is fine, conscious and interacting,” Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Kamal Pant told TNM.
He is being treated at the Columbia Asia Hospital in Bengaluru’s Hebbal, police sources confirmed. He is due for retirement in December, sources said.
In 2018, he had severely criticised the Siddaramaiah government of intefering with the functioning of the police department. The government however took disciplinary action against him after his letter was leaked.
Sharma was in news also when he was in charge of Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force in 2017 and had earned praise for works related to removing encroachments from stormwater drains and other government/ public lands. He had become popular as he was acting on public complaints against Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike engineers and officials.
Incidentally in 2013 too, he was caught in a controversy when he was then BMTF Additional Director General of Police. It was alleged that his wife Dr Nagambika Devi, IAS, had already got land from Bangalore Metropolitan Housing Society in 1998 as its member. The land was sold in 2002 but the IPS officer did not disclose this as mandated to the Mysore Police Cooperative Housing Society (MPCHS). However at that time Sharma had denied any wrongdoing and said that he had himself checked with the authorities on the legal issues.
A top police officer in the state said that Sharma was suffering from multiple health ailments.