Cop CCTV scan

TT, Jalpaiguri, Aug. 11: Senior police officers of Jalpaiguri district conducting the departmental inquiry into yesterday's alleged suicide by a constable are looking into a number of aspects and examining the CCTV footage of the police station, sources said today.

Chandan Roy, a constable posted at the Banarhat police station, committed suicide yesterday early morning by hanging himself in his barracks room after he thought he had lost his rifle.

The firearms, strictly speaking, was not lost. When Roy was dozing on sentry duty, a visiting inspector, Ram Singh, had taken it from him quietly and deposited it at a nearby police camp.

His suicide made the district police ask Bholanath Pandey, additional superintendent of police of Jalpaiguri, and Badal Karmakar, the deputy superintendent of police (crime), to carry out an inquiry.

"They have visited the police station and are examining the CCTV footage of that time when the incident happened. They are trying to confirm whether the constable was sleeping during duty, whether Ram Singh, the inspector of the district intelligence branch, took away his rifle and whether the duty officer was not in his room then," a source said.

The officers have also jotted down the time gaps of each situation, right from the constable's activities while being on duty, Singh's entry and exit (he took the rifle to another police camp nearby) and some other details, sources said.

Sources said after the report is submitted, the district police chief is likely to go through the report. "There are chances that he might call Kumar Tamang, the duty officer, some other policemen of Banarhat and of course with Ram Singh, the DIB inspector," they said.