The wife of the Eastern Coalfields Ltd (ECL) officer who collapsed during a CBI interrogation and died soon after has said her husband had no prior history of any cardiac ailment.

“My husband had no prior history of any cardiac ailment.… But I am told that he suddenly died of cardiac arrest. I don't know how it happened,” an inconsolable Jaya Devi told this correspondent on Saturday night shortly before leaving for Ballia in Uttar Pradesh.

Her husband and ECL security officer Dhananjay Rai (not Roy as erroneously reported by this newspaper on Sunday) had died on Saturday after being questioned by the CBI as part of a probe into coal smuggling.

Several neighbours and colleagues of Rai who visited the family’s Sripur home to pay their condolences said his wife Jaya Devi kept wondering how her husband, without a history of cardiac ailments, could collapse during questioning by CBI sleuths.

Hours before she left Asansol, Jaya was informed by ECL officials that as Rai died in harness, she would be recruited as a “mazdoor” in the company. ECL sources said her salary would be around Rs 26,000 a month. Her husband used to get a salary of around Rs 75,000.

“I have two daughters, aged 17 and 11.... We hail from Uttar Pradesh and all our relatives stay there. In Asansol we are alone. I have got a job but I don’t know how I would raise my daughters (alone here),” she said.

Asked about Rai’s alleged involvement in coal smuggling, Jaya said she was shocked when the CBI went to their home. “My husband had been in the army... I don’t think he was part of any wrongdoing,” she added.