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Kolkata/Chandigarh: Haryana Minister Gopal Kanda resigned after being named in the suicide note of former air hostess of MDLR Airlines. 

Earlier, after a case was registered in Delhi against against Kanda in connection with suicide of a 23-year-old former air hostess of MDLR airline, chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda assured action even as opposition Indian National Lok Dal stepped up pressure demanding the minister’s immediate arrest and dismissal of the state government. 

"I have come to know about this. I am finding out the details...let me check the facts. We will take appropriate action," said Mr Hooda, who was attending a function in Kolkata today.

Geetika Sharma, a former employee of the now defunct MDLR airline allegedly committed suicide at her Delhi residence. 

Police registered a case against Mr Kanda, who was the owner of the airline, on charges of abetting the crime. She allegedly committed suicide at her Ashok Vihar residence in north-west Delhi last night, apparently out of depression over continuing mental harassment allegedly by the minister, police said. 

In her suicide note, the victim had claimed that Kanda was torturing her mentally after she left her job in his company and was pressurising her to join his firm again.

Hours after the case was registered, INLD president and former chief minister Om Prakash Chautala demanded immediate arrest of Mr Kanda and dismissal of the state government. He said that earlier a Haryana minister and a chief parliamentary secretary in the Hooda government had faced allegations of involvement in murder of a former sarpanch in Karnal district. 

He further alleged that it was not the first time that the ’controversial Minister’ was caught on the wrong foot of the law. The INLD leader said that during his party-sponsored bandh in Sirsa in August 2010, Mr Kanda’s bodyguards had allegedly assaulted its activists during the shutdown, a charge which was then denied by the Independent legislator. 

He also said that names of Mr Kanda’s associates had figured in an alleged gangrape of a girl, assault on a former international cricketer and some income tax sleuths. 

"One can only imagine how safe will the people of Haryana be when a person like him (Kanda) has been entrusted with the responsibility to handle the Home Department," Mr Chautala said. 

Mr Kanda, an Independent MLA from Sirsa constituency and Minister of State for Home and Youth Affairs, could not be contacted, but an aide said he was expected to brief the media in Gurgaon this evening.