50-Year-Old Traffic Cop Shoots Himself Dead Inside Police Station, Probe Initiated To Solve Suicide Mystery

A 50-year-old Indian police officer was found dead with a gunshot wound to his head inside the police station in the Eastern Indian state of Assam.

The working hours had just begun Monday morning, Aug. 8, when police officers at the Tinsukia Sadar police station were jolted by the sound of gunshots from inside the building.

Officers tracked back the sound and arrived at the scene, where they found Assistant Sub Inspector (ASI) Dinakanta Sonowal lying in a pool of blood, unresponsive with a gunshot wound to his head.

He was rushed to the local hospital, but doctors said the officer did not survive because his injuries were extremely critical.

“He was given CPR and also put on a ventilator but he could not survive. Brain matter was oozing due to the bullet wound,” a doctor said.

Investigators believe Sonowal shot himself in the head from point-blank range with his service revolver. It is not known if a suicide note was recovered in this incident.

According to reports, Sonowal was posted in the Traffic department of the Tinsukia police force. He is survived by his wife and two children.

The circumstances that forced him to take the extreme step remain unclear at this time, police said. A further probe is underway.

LT had reported a similar incident when a 23-year-old police officer was found dead under mysterious circumstances at her rented home in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, July 24.

The woman constable, identified as Ruchi Sachan allegedly killed herself by hanging from a ceiling fan in her rented home in the Deviganj area of Kaushambi district on Sunday night, according to reports.

The shocking death came to light when police officers did a welfare check at the victim’s home after her family members alerted them that she wasn’t answering their phone calls for a while.

Officers who responded to the home found the front door locked. They broke open the door and found the victim hanging dead in her bedroom, police said.

Investigators stated family issues as the primary cause behind the tragedy.