The police constable who shot a woman dead and injured two other passers-by on a Calcutta street on Friday had fired 10 bullets and had 30 more with him when he used the 11th on himself, police sources said.
Chodup Lepcha had loaded his 7.62mm self-loading rifle twice within five minutes to fire the 11 bullets, the last of which tore through his own head.
Investigators said they had found nine empty cartridges and suspected that the remaining two may have been misplaced, with hundreds having gathered at the spot on Lower Range Road, near Park Circus, after the Friday afternoon shooting.
Sources said Lepcha had been treated at the Institute of Psychiatry in March for anxiety and aggression, following which he was discharged.
Videos and CCTV footage have shown a man in police uniform pointing his rifle at pedestrians, roadside objects and passing vehicles and then shooting at random before taking breaks to bend down and reload his rifle.
One clip shows the gunman aiming at a motorcycle, with two riders, at close range. The motorcycle pauses for a few seconds before moving away. The gunman then appears to aim in the direction of the motorcycle.
Another clip shows the person riding pillion falling off the two-wheeler, apparently hit.
Screenshots from footage show two people on a motorbike, and the pillion rider getting hit by something and falling off. The pillion rider who fell resembled Rima Singh, who was shot dead by the police constable on Friday. The Telegraph
On Friday, the police had said that Rima Singh — a young physiotherapist from Howrah who was the lone shooting victim to die — was walking when the bullet hit her. But footage that emerged on Saturday suggested she was the pillion rider hit by a bullet.
An officer said that an SLR’s effective range is about 250 metres. “Rima Singh’s body was found around 25 metres from the spot from where the uniformed man shot at her,” he added.
Mohammad Sarfaraz, who was sitting outside a garage, was shot at from two metres and was lucky that the bullet merely grazed his arm, an officer who is part of the investigation team said.
Officers said it was still unclear where the third victim, M. Bashir Alam, was when he was hit on the right shoulder.
“He had continued to ride his two-wheeler after being hit. He went to the nearest police post at Park Circus and informed them that a police officer was firing on a street and that he had been hit,” an officer said.
“We have therefore been unable to determine the exact spot where Bashir was hit.”
Rima, her family’s lone breadwinner, was declared dead at the Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital (CNMCH).
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee sent a cheque for Rs 5 lakh as compensation to Rima’s family at their Dasnagar home on Saturday morning.
“Madam (chief minister) spoke to the victim’s mother over the phone and promised a job for her younger son,” an official in Howrah said.
Rima’s brother, who has completed his Class XII, gave his CV to the Howrah officials who visited the family’s home with the cheque.
The post-mortem on Rima’s body was done at the N.R.S. Medical College and Hospital on Saturday. The police said the bullet had entered Rima’s neck from the right and exited through the other side.
On Saturday evening, doctors at SSKM Hospital operated on Alam to remove the bullet lodged in his body.
“A lone bullet was lodged in a region around the head of the scapula (the shoulder blade) and was removed,” a senior doctor at SSKM said. “The patient is under observation. We will review his condition on Sunday.”
Sources said Alam had an X-ray of his right shoulder taken at the CNMCH, where he had initially been taken, around 2.45pm on Friday. The report was sent to SSKM after the 48-year-old was shifted there.
