Former Ranji player commits suicide

ALLAHABAD: Poor mental condition and alleged apathy of office colleagues drove a former Ranji cricketer to suicide, police said on Saturday.

They said 35-year-old Ram Babu Pal, who had represented Uttar Pradesh in Ranji Trophy matches in the early 1990s, was found hanging from the ceiling of his Shivkuti residence on Saturday morning.

The ex-cricketer, who had also played in the national Under-19 team alongside players like Sachin Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli, has left a suicide note in which he has expressed 'distress' over her mental condition and alleged that his colleagues at the local branch of a nationalised bank where he was working, used to make fun of him.

Pal is survived by wife and a son and a daughter. He would be cremated this evening, family sources said even as former cricketers of the city and avid followers of the game kept thronging his house to condole his death.

Meanwhile, police were investigating the allegation of colleagues' bad behaviour made by the ex-cricketer in his suicide note.