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Purulia, March 10: A youth who saw his kin being thrashed by alleged Maoists in 2008 and had been under psychiatric treatment since then fell to his death from a roof as police and fire brigade teams tried to bring him down last night.
Amit Singh Babu, 30, the great-nephew of CPM zilla parishad functionary in charge of agriculture, Rambishnu Singh Babu, had locked himself on the roof since Friday evening, refusing to come down.
He had come with his parents earlier in the day from Mudali, their village in Arsha block, for blood tests and psychiatric consultations.
“After the blood tests, we came over to my uncle’s quarters where we had decided to stay till Sunday, the day the psychiatrist comes to the Sadar Hospital from Calcutta,” said the youth’s father Rameshwar Prasad Singh Babu, a well-off farmer.
“In the evening, he left the room and went to the roof without saying anything. When it was time for dinner, we called him and found that he had locked the door leading to the roof. He refused to listen to any of us and come down,” Rameshwar Prasad said.
After staying on the roof all night, he was given breakfast and lunch through a gap between the wall and the door to the roof.
“We broke open the door yesterday afternoon. But he climbed to a part of the roof where there are no protective walls and refused to budge,” his father said.
Rambishnu had in the meantime contacted his colleagues, including the zilla parishad chairperson.
They in turn informed the police and the fire brigade, which sent teams to Rambishnu’s house. By that time dusk had fallen.
Amit, however, continued to reject attempts to persuade him to come down.
He had even fortified himself with a stockpile of stones and bricks and kept throwing them at whoever tried to climb up. Around 8.30pm, the fire brigade and police personnel decided to spray water aiming at the roof to bring him down.
“But he fell to the ground from the other side of the roof,” said a fire brigade official.
Amit first fell on a fibreglass roof and then onto the ground, a height of about 40 feet.
“He was rushed to the Purulia Sadar Hospital nearby and admitted,” the official said. Hospital sources said he was conscious and even said his name. But his condition deteriorated and doctors declared him dead at 1.30am.
The family said Amit suffered from severe fear psychosis since he saw his great-uncle and his sons being beaten up by over 50 Maoists at their village home in 2008.
“Whenever he saw a group of people, he locked himself up. We took him to a psychiatrist in Ranchi and his condition improved temporarily. After a relapse, we resumed his treatment in Purulia,” his father said.
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