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Agartala, Sept. 28: A Tripura State Rifles jawan, who had “kidnapped” a sub-inspector of police and his driver last night and injured two colleagues, committed suicide this morning using his service rifle in south Durganagar village under Kalyanpur police station of Khowai district.
According to police sources, Thakurdas Pal had been in a state of deep depression since he heard that his girlfriend in his native Madhya Pradesh had been married off by her parents last night. This may have forced the heartbroken jawan into taking the extreme step.
Pal, 30, a jawan of TSR’s 11th Battalion and hailing from Madhya Pradesh, had accompanied three other jawans and sub-inspector Debasish Saha to Colonel Square area here last night, sources said.
While the team were engaged in law and order duty, Pal got into an altercation with the sub-inspector and in a fit of rage fired at least five rounds from his AK-47 assault rifle.
The jawan then forced Saha and his driver Dilip Das to get into the police vehicle, a Maruti Gypsy, and directed the driver to move towards Khowai district, sources said.
Police on duty saw the racing vehicle and raised an alarm, following which TSR jawans in northern posts built barricades. As the vehicle neared Sarat Chowdhury para, a group of TSR 9th Battalion jawans tried to stop it, but Pal opened fire and critically injured a jawan, Safiq Ulla. Safiq was rushed to G.B. Hospital here.
When the vehicle reached the Kalyanpur police station area around 11pm, the Gypsy ran out of fuel and Pal left the SI and his driver and ran into the forest east of Kalyanpur.
Commandant of TSR’s 11th Battalion, Suresh Koloi and sub-divisional police officer Kalyanpur Jyotishman Das led a search party to track down Pal. Around 9am today, they reached a thatched hut in the forest.
Pal, who was holed up in the hut, opened fire on the search party and injured jawan Gopal Debnath. The search party then entered the hut and found Pal’s body lying in a pool of blood.
“The nature of the injury on his forehead suggests he committed suicide,” said Das.
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