A 50-year-old jawan of 197 battalion of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his service self-loading rifle (AK-47) at iron-ore mining hub of the region in Jharkhand’s Karampada at the Maoist-affected Saranda forest area of West Singhbhum district, on Saturday early morning, over 200 km south of capital Ranchi.

The deceased jawan has been identified as an assistant sub-inspector in the CRPF, Umeed Singh, a native of Churu district of Rajasthan and was deputed at the Karampada base camp of 197 battalion of CRPF for over two years.

Though no suicide note has been recovered from the place of occurrence but police sources claimed that the jawan was depressed over family issues.

“We rule out work related pressure as the reason for the suicide as there has not been much movement of Maoist in the region off late. We have not received any suicide note from the place and have informed the relatives of the jawan about the incident and only after they arrive at the site we can know the exact reason for the suicide. Colleagues, however, claim that he was staying depressed over some family issues for the last few days.

“Today morning as usual he completed his morning ablution and all of a sudden there sounds of gun shots and jawans rushed to Umeed lying in pool of blood with his service lying near him. He was rushed to the nearby Kiriburu hospital where he was declared brought dead,” said Kiriburu police station officer-in-charge, Ashok Kumar.

The body has been sent for post-mortem to Chaibasa Sadar Hospital and the last rites would be performed after the arrival of the relatives.

“We have gathered that he had been in training at Delhi for a long time and was deployed at Karampada two years ago. His elder son is in railway and daughter was also married, but still he was tensed over some family issues,” said a CRPF official requesting anonymity.

CRPF officials have informed senior officials at Chaibasa and also in Delhi about the incident.