Buxar CRPF jawan slits throat after puja in temple

RAMGARH/BUXAR/PATNA: A CPRF constable ‘sacrificed’ self by slitting throat on the Chhinnamastika temple premises in Jharkhand’s Rajrappa on Tuesday morning.
According to eyewitnesses, 35-year-old Sanjay Nat from Balihar village in neighbouring Bihar’s Buxar district slit his throat with a sickle just outside the sanctum sanctorum after offering prayers around 6.20am.He died on the spot.
There were only a handful of devotees in the temple at that time. Priests said Nat stood in front of the deity even after finishing puja. “While chanting hymns with eyes closed, he suddenly took out a sickle from his gamchha (towel) and slit his throat,” Rajrappa Temple Panda Samiti general secretary Subhashish Panda told TOI.
As panic spread, the priests shut the temple. It was reopened after ‘shuddhikaran’ (purification) at 9.30am, Panda said.
Police later sent the body for postmortem. “We identified the man from a piece of paper in his pocket. It had his name, address and a few phone numbers,” Rajrappa police station officer-in-charge Atin Kumar said and added Sanjay belonged to the 26th CRPF Battalion, based at Nuapada in Odisha.
Located at the confluence of Damodar and Bhairavi rivers, 68km from Jharkhand capital Ranchi, the famous Rajrappa temple is dedicated to headless deity of goddess Chhinnamastika who holds a scimitar in one hand and Her severed head in the other. The temple is one of the ‘shakti peeths’ as per ancient Hindu scriptures.
Sanjay’s family in Buxar said he was a religious person but neither depressed nor under any stress. “He was quite happy when he came home on leave on January15. I don’t know why and how he did this,” his wailing wife Sharda Devi said.
A dog handler in the CRPF, Sanjay returned on January 27. “On reaching Naupada, he even called my mother and informed her that he had eaten the ‘littis’ (a Bihar delicacy) she had given to him when he had left,” Sanjay’s cousin Ramesh Nat told this newspaper.
Ramesh demanded a probe. “Sanjay hailed from a family of people in forces. His father is in Bihar Military Police and elder brother Santosh also in CRPF, currently posted in Chhattisgarh. Like his father and brother, Sanjay was a strong man -- physically and mentally. I don’t think he could have ended his life on own,” said Ramesh.
Sanjay, who had studied up to Class XII, joined the CRPF in 2008, two years after his marriage. He has two sons, Punit (10) and Himanshu (8), and two daughters, Anandi (7) and Kunti (6). Sanjay’s father Hridyanand Nat reached Ranchi on Tuesday evening, said family members.