Dibrugarh, June 12: The disappearance of Maj. Anurag Sarma, an army doctor, from the army hospital at Dinjan-based headquarters of the 2 Mountain Division, has sent shockwaves through Upper Assam.

Police claimed to have spotted suicide notes near his abandoned vehicle a stone’s throw from Oakland ghat along the Brahmaputra under Rohmoria police station in Dibrugarh.

Based on preliminary findings, the police suspect that he may have committed suicide by plunging into the river.

The body is yet to be fished out.

Dibrugarh superintendent of police, V.K. Ramisetti, said in one of the suicide notes he had requested that the vehicle be handed over to his seniors and even mentioned the name of a colonel.

“In another note, Maj. Sarma had apologised for having taken such an extreme step. He had left some notes for his friends and family. An investigation is on,” Ramisetti said.

“Unless the body is found and a post-mortem conducted, we cannot be sure that he had committed suicide. He could have been abducted,” an army source said.

Though the army remains tightlipped, sources said that stress had led Maj. Sarma to take such an extreme step. “We are yet to find out why Sarma might take such a step. We are still investigating the matter,” a senior army officer based in Dinjan, said.

The army source said Maj. Sarma drove out of Dinjan in his official vehicle last evening after duty hours.

The incident swivelled the spotlight back on a syndrome increasingly worrying army and paramilitary brass: armymen cracking under the strain of tackling militancy. This is especially true of soldiers serving in the Northeast and in Jammu and Kashmir.

Statistics placed by former defence minister Pranab Mukherjee in Parliament in August 2006, showed 66 soldiers committing suicides in 2002, 96 in 2003, 100 in 2004 and 71 till November 2005.

Havildar death: A CRPF havildar, Baljeet Singh, shot himself from his service rifle at Fatasil Ambari area of Guwahati at around 7.30 pm.