Can the high pollution levels in Delhi lead a person to commit suicide? A 40-year-old deputy secretary in the ministry of rural development, L Balachandra, had committed suicide at his Pragati Vihar residence in the Capital on March 29. Police suspect Balachandra was driven to this by the exposure to the high pollution levels in the city.

These suspicions are based on a letter to his superior officer left behind by Balachandra, in which he stated that he wanted to be transferred back to the Andamans from where he had been posted to Delhi on deputation. In another letter to one of his seniors Balachandra had written that he "felt uncomfortable in the city where the pollution level was so high".

Balachandra's letters to his wife in the Andamans and his father in Bangalore are also, police say, marked by constant criticism of the capital's environmental degradation and pollution.