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A 35-year-old Jharkhand Police constable — deployed at a plastic factory in Tatisilwai, some 5km from Ranchi — shot himself dead with this Insas service rifle on Wednesday morning.
Colleagues said Akhilesh Ram went into burst fire — a shooting mode that enables one to trigger a predetermined number of rounds, usually two or three in case of hand-held weapons — around 9.30am and took three bullets in the stomach before they co-uld stop him. He was taken to Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, but doctors declared him brought dead.
Tatisilwai police said Ram was a resident of Ramkanda village in Garhwa, about 250km from the state capital, and had been deputed at the factory for the past one month. An assistant sub-inspector and four constables guard the unit that produces chairs and tables, and Ram was one of them.
Ranchi SSP Saket Kumar Singh confirmed the incident as suicide, but said the reason behind the extreme step had not been ascertained so far. He, however, added that they suspected domestic problem.
A policeman at Tatisilwai corroborated Singh’s theory, saying that Ram spoke to his wife over phone for an hour and a half from 6am. “He was disturbed ever since that call. When his colleagues noticed he was worried, they asked him the reason. Instead of answering, he took out his service rifle and shot himself dead,” he said.
A case of unnatural death has been registered at Tatisilwai police station and Ram’s body sent for post-mortem.
Though the reason behind Ram’s suicide is yet to be ascertained, job stress has often spurred men in uniform in Jharkhand to pull the trigger.
On January 2, 2010, Jharkhand Jaguar jawan Shankar Thapa (25) had shot himself — also with an Insas rifle — in Dhurwa, Ranchi, after he was denied leave to visit his family on New Year.
On August 13, 2010, a member of JAP, Rai Bahadur Parihar, killed himself with his service weapon. Parihar was posted at a police picket in Chatra, some 170km from Ranchi, and was under stress, according to his colleagues.On March 7, 2010, another jawan of the 11th Battalion of Jharkhand Jaguar also ended his life in a same manner at the Rania barracks in Khunti district.
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