COIMBATORE: A police constable, who shot himself in Coimbatore on Friday afternoon, died in the early hours of Saturday without responding to treatment.
Preliminary inquiries revealed that the constable, R Kalimuthu, 29, had borrowed money from his friends and lost Rs 20 lakh playing online rummy. He took the extreme step as he was unable to repay the money to his friends.
Kalimuthu was attached to the Coimbatore city armed reserve police. He joined the police force in 2013.
Kalimuthu, a native of Melathulukkankulam village in Virudhunagar district, was deployed for guard duty at the police stall in a government-organised exhibition in Gandhipuram. More than 32 government departments opened their stalls to showcase their schemes. The city police displayed its weapons in the stall where Kalimuthu was on duty.
On Friday afternoon, he was alone at the stall for duty. Around 3.40pm, he shot himself with a self-loading rifle (SLR). The bullet pierced his rightside abdomen and exited through the back. He was found in a pool of blood. He was admitted to a private hospital where doctors carried out a surgery. The bullet had pierced his kidney, and he died without responding to treatment around 12.40 am on Saturday.
The dead body was shifted to the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) for postmortem.
Kalimuthu is survived by his wife Salai Thillainayaki and a daughter aged four years and a son aged three years.
