The body of a young English teacher, who was missing since October 7, was on Saturday morning recovered from a pond near Barkakana railway station in Ramgarh, around 50km from the capital, triggering sensation in the area.
A passer-by spotted the floating body, which was identified as that of Kumari Ankita, aged 25, a newly inducted Kendriya Vidyalaya teacher of English. Ankita had been married to Ved Prakash, a manager of the Oriental Bank of Commerce posted at Gurgaon, but was staying at a rented house at Friends Colony on Gaushala Road in Ramgarh after getting a job in the co-educational Kendriya Vidyalaya at Bhurkunda in the same district as recently as on September 7 this year.
Superintendent of police of Ramgarh Prabhat Kumar confirmed finding the body from a pond and said that prima facie the death appears to be suicide but a conclusive statement could be given only after an autopsy report. The SP added that a suicide note had been recovered from the room of the young woman, suggesting she was depressed over a family matter.
However, he declined sharing the details of the note. “The matter is under investigation and I can’t share details at this point,” he said.
A police officer at Town police station, under which the pond where Ankita’s body was found, said the suicide note is more than two pages long and written in English.
He added that the teacher in all likelihood committed suicide on October 7 after seeing her mother-in-law off at Barkakana railway station. “Ankita’s mother-in-law went to Jehanabad in Bihar. Ankita last spoke with her husband at 3pm and then with her father-in-law at 4.30pm,” he said.
A resident of the area, who did not want to come on quote, told this paper that Ankita went missing exactly a month after she joined the Kendriya Vidyalaya.
“We have come to know that her husband Ved Prakash repeatedly called her from the evening of October 7 without getting any response from her. Finally, he called up her landlord, who said her room was locked from 5pm onwards on October 7,” the resident said.
The local source said her husband filed a missing case on October 9 after he reached Ramgarh from Gurgaon. “Accompanied by the police, the husband got the door opened on October 9 to find her bag and mobile phone intact inside the room,” he said. “I did not have any idea about the suicide note.”