A 50-year-old bank official, said to be suffering from depression, killed himself by jumping in front of a Metro Railway train at Rabindra Sadan station on Thursday morning minutes after dropping his daughter to college.

Swapan Banerjee, the assistant manager of the Rabindra Sarani branch of Andhra Bank, jumped in front of a Dum Dum-bound train just as it was pulling into the station at 10.10am.

The Haridevpur resident was rushed to SSKM Hospital where he was declared dead on arrival.

The mishap disrupted Metro services between Maidan and Tollygunge for half an hour. “Trains, however, plied normally between Dum Dum and Maidan and between Tollygunge and Garia Bazar,” said a Metro spokesperson.

An officer of Bhowanipore police station said: “Banerjee seemed to have made up his mind before taking the plunge as he put his bag on the platform before jumping on the tracks.... Family members told us that he had been depressed for some time but could not specify the reason.”

According to friend Asim Chand Boral, Banerjee had been undergoing psychiatric treatment at a private clinic.

Colleagues had noticed an abrupt change in Banerjee’s behaviour since his return from a family vacation in Mumbai in May.

“He returned a changed man. He often remained absent-minded in office and even skipped work. That was quite unusual for an efficient official like him,” said Chandranath Chatterjee, the manager of the Rabindra Sarani branch where Banerjee had been posted since April.

Relatives said Banerjee’s wife Kalyani, who runs a beauty parlour, and daughter Shreya saw nothing in his behaviour on Thursday morning that could suggest he was contemplating suicide.

“He seemed upset for a while but never said why. That apart there was nothing alarming in his behaviour. He and his wife even went for their morning walk on Thursday,” said relative Subhasis Das.

Then father and daughter — Shreya, a second-year student at Sikkim Manipal University in Bhowanipore — left home together in a taxi around 8.45am.

“He dropped Shreya to her institute and was supposed to head straight for office.... We don’t know how we will break the news to his 80-year-old mother,” said another relative.

This was the sixth suicide on the Metro tracks this year.