The 21-year-old son of a senior crime branch officer shot himself in the head using his father’s service weapon at the family’s residence at Tilak Nagar on Wednesday morning. While the cause of the suicide is still unknown, police sources believe an argument between the father and son to have triggered the act. The Tilak Nagar police has currently registered a case of accidental death.
Tejas, son of senior PI Arvind Sawant who heads unit-3 of the crime branch, lived with his family in a 2BHK apartment on the eight floor of building 108 in the New Tilak Nagar area. On Wednesday, between 6.30 am and 7 am, Tejas took his father’s service weapon, an Austrian-made Glock 9 mm caliber pistol and shot himself in the right temple. “Tejas slept on the sofa in the living room. His mother and 18-year-old sister slept in a different room, while his father slept alone in the other bedroom. He went into his father’s bedroom and took the weapon from the drawer in the cupboard. He then came into the living room and pulled the trigger,” said a police officer. Tejas was a TYBSc student at DG Ruparel College in Matunga.
Mr Sawant continued to sleep as he assumed the noise was made by the heavy rains. Tejas’s mother then came out in the balcony and saw his body in a pool of blood through the living room window. “The bullet exited from his right temple and hit the window pane in the living room and is believed to be lying inside the house. We are searching for the same,” the officer added. The body was taken to Rajawadi Hospital in Ghatkopar (east) where doctors declared him dead.
DCP Mahesh Ghurye, who is currently holding additional charge of zone-6 said, “His WhatsApp status message read ‘One day..no more…forever..miss me’. The weapon has been sent for ballistic analysis.”