Bongaigaon, April 8: A jawan of Sashastra Seema Bal, arrested yesterday on the charges of murdering a woman from Arunachal Pradesh, died last night in police custody in Bongaigaon.

Police had picked up the jawan, Sandeswar Medhi, 32, who worked as washerman for the 15th Battalion, from the SSB's sector headquarters at Kishan Bazar in Bongaigaon where he has been posted for the past two years, around 7.30pm yesterday in connection with the murder of a woman from Arunachal. Her body was found floating in a ditch on March 21 near the sector headquarters.

Initially, the police could not find any clues and being unable to identify the body, disposed it of after 72 hours.

On April 5, some relatives of the murdered woman came to the Bongaigaon patrol post from Arunachal Pradesh's West Kameng district and identified her as Tashi Zomba Kharma, 29, from her photograph.

According to the FIR lodged by the victim's relatives, the police registered a case under Sections 302 and 201 of IPC. Subsequently, the police found the victim was connected to Sandeswar during investigation.

The police last night picked up Sandeswar from the sector headquarters for interrogation after taking formal permission from the SSB authority.

"Last night, when Sandeswar fainted, he was rushed to Bongaigaon civil hospital from North Bongaigaon patrol post. A doctor in the hospital referred him to Barpeta Medical College Hospital where he was declared brought dead," additional superintendent of police Imdad Ali said.

Bongaigaon is around 190km from Guwahati.

"SSB authorities have already filed an FIR, after being informed of the death of the jawan around 9am today, suspecting custody death and sought an inquiry and post-mortem of the body according to the Supreme Court guidelines in such cases," Setu Ram, commandant of SSB's 15 Bn, said.

Family members of the jawan, including his wife and mother, have not filed any FIR.

Bongaigaon superintendent of police Kumar Sanjit Krishna has ordered an inquiry into the jawan's death, Ali said.

Police sources said the jawan had an affair with the woman during his posting in Arunachal Pradesh in 2013. She left her home in West Kameng, 510km from Bongaigaon, on March 21 to meet him.

But after that she went missing, a police source said quoting the woman's relatives.