Youth ends life in police lock-up

A youth, accused of abducting a minor girl, allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself inside a police lock-up here.

Pawan Kumar Sharma, a resident of Sarwal in Jammu, was detained along with two others on September 30 and kept in the lock-up of Ram Munshi Bagh police station in connection with the abduction, police said.
    
"Yesterday we found him hanging from a grill of the lock up bathroom window. He had cut a strap from a straw mat spread on the floor to prepare the noose," police said.

A probe has been ordered into the incident, SSP Srinagar Javed Riyaz said, adding that Additional District Magistrate Srinagar Mohammad Akbar Ganaie has been nominated as an inquiry officer.

"The body has been handed over to the kins of the deceased after postmortem," he said.
    
According to police, Sharma was among the five accused involved in the abduction of a minor girl near Dal lake on August 21.

Four persons have been arrested in connection with the case. One of them got bail, while search is on to nab the fifth person, police said, adding that the girl has not been traced yet.