AGARTALA: A 40 yrs old Tripura State Rifles (TSR) jawan committed suicide in Agartala this morning after killing his wife and two children by his service weapon at home.
The incident triggered serious tension in Subhasnagar area in southern locality of the city.
Police made extra deployment to restore normalcy and civil administration was requested to mobilise plain cloth security forces to regain the confidence of the people on armed personnel.
The shooting comes just two days after a young BSF jawan committed suicide after shooting dead three of his colleagues in North Tripura.
Police said TSR 1st battalion jawan Manik Ghosh went berserk in the early morning and shot dead his wife Ratna Ghosh (34) in the kitchen and son Dipraj Ghosh (10) and daughter Ipsita Ghosh (4) on the breakfast table.
His father and younger brother narrowly escaped from his bullets.
According to report, Manik went to battalion headquarter at Gakulnagar in around 0530 hrs and returned home around 0645 hrs in civil dress with an SLR.
He had joined the service as Rifleman about 16 years ago, but after an accident he was shifted to non-armed duty for past few years.
Police said the initial investigations revealed that the incident was the fall out of a marital squabble.
The local residents revealed that the couple had been quarreling over an alleged extra marital affair of Manik's wife.
The tiff had compelled his father to separate the two in the same house.
The couple was also quarreling last night, but were stopped by the intervention of the other family members.
Early in the morning, Manik went out when others were asleep and came back when Ratna was preparing breakfast in the kitchen and both the children were waiting for their father on the breakfast table.
Manik parked his motorbike in the gate and entered into the kitchen with the SLR and shot his wife on head from a close distance, said Sujoy Ghosh, the next door neighbour of the family.
He added, immediately, he shot two more bullets on his children's heads from point blank range.
In the meantime, his younger brother and father came to prevent him.
Manik targeted the gun towards them and they laid flat against a wall.
Then, he shot himself in the head.
However, SP (West) Ajit Pratap Singh said that police was investigating the case from a different angle, including how Manik managed to bring the SLR to his home, that too, early in the morning, being a non-armed personnel, apart from the role of his family members in the incident.
Police and TSR contingent reached the spot soon after the incident.
Police said fear gripped the locality and few people ran away from their homes, while some others kept behind their doors.
The civil administration took steps to restore normalcy in the area and has gradually started withdrawing armed personnel, said SDM Sadar Tapan Das.