An international master in chess committed suicide at his Tallah home early on Tuesday.

Family members said Shankar Roy, 38, had slipped into severe depression since the death of his father, who had initiated him into the game, around a fortnight ago.

Roy was found hanging from the ceiling of a ground-floor room where he used to practise the sport. A suicide note found on a table said he was going “in search of God”.

“Our father was like God for him,” said Shankar’s elder sister, Kakali.

“He took his first lesson in chess from our father Samir Kumar Roy when he was eight years old. My father had actually bought the chessboard for me but it didn’t interest me at all. One day, my brother beat my father in a game when he was only eight. From that day, he started concentrating on chess under the guidance of my father.”

Kakali said Shankar had stopped interacting with the family and become a recluse after his father, who had been suffering from blood cancer, died on April 25.

Shankar had dinner as usual on Monday night and retired to his bedroom on the first floor with wife Anasuya.

“Early in the morning, Anasuya noticed her husband was not in bed. She looked for him on the first floor before going down to the ground floor, where she found him hanging,” said an officer of Tallah police station.

An employee of Eastern Railway, Roy represented India several times in tournaments in Germany, Singapore, Brazil, Romania and the erstwhile USSR. He won the senior state championship in four successive years from 1995.

His last rating by FIDE (World Chess Federation), which acts as the governing body of international chess, was 2,311.

Grandmaster Dibyendu Barua visited Shankar’s home on hearing the news of his death.