AGARTALA: Two days after a BSF jawan shot dead three of his colleagues before killing himself, a 40-year-old rifleman of the
Tripura
State Rifles (TSR) committed suicide after killing his family here on Tuesday.
Manik Ghosh shot dead his wife Ratna (34) and his two children,
Dipraj
(10) and Debasmita (4), at their Subhasnagar home. His father and younger brother, who were also in the house, managed to escape the gunfire. Manik reportedly went to the headquarters of the 1st Battalion, under which he was serving, at
Gakulnagar
around 5.30am. He returned home around 6.45am in civilian clothes with a self-loading rifle. Having joined service 16 years ago as a rifleman, he had been moved to non-armed duty a few years ago after an accident. "We are investigating how Manik, as a non-armed personnel, managed to lay his hands on an SLR,"
Ajit Pratap Singh
, SP of
West Tripura
, said.
Police said initial investigations suggests marital discord might have motivated the crime. Neighbours of the family said there had been instances of squabbles between Manik and wife earlier. "This morning, Ratna was preparing breakfast and the children were waiting for their father. Manik parked his bike at the gate and entered the kitchen with the SLR. He shot his wife in the head," Sujoy Ghosh, their next-door neighbour said. "Manik pumped bullets into his children's head from point-blank range. His brother and father tried to stop him, but he pointed the gun towards them. Then he shot himself in the head," he added.
As tension spread following the incident, police made deployed additional forces to restore normalcy. The civic administration has also taken steps to restore normalcy in the area, sub-divisional magistrate Sadar Tapan Das said.
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