CRPF trooper who killed woman kabaddi player dies

PATNA/SHIMLA - A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) trooper who fired at himself after shooting down a national-level woman kabaddi player died of his injuries at a hospital in the Bihar capital, police said Friday.

CRPF trooper Jaswant Singh was being treated at the Patna Medical College and Hospital. “He died Thursday night,” a police official said in Patna.

Singh had shot Manisha Thakur, the woman kabaddi player, with his AK-47 Wednesday evening near Bahadurpur railway crossing in Patna when she refused to give him her phone number and then turned the gun on himself.

Meanwhile, the family of Manisha, who hails from a village in Himachal Pradesh’s Shimla district, has reached Patna to collect her body.

Singh was posted at the CRPF camp at the Moinul Haq Stadium, where young women players come to attend practice sessions for the 34th National Games in Jharkhand beginning Feb 12.

Manisha, in her early 20s, was a member of the Bihar women’s kabaddi team. Police say Jaswant had been stalking her for the last few days.

Police said Singh, who hails from Rajasthan, belonged to the 131st CRPF Battalion.

Manisha, who belonged to a lower middle class family of Jhalwari village in Chirgaon area, some 160 km from Shimla, would be cremated Saturday at her native place.

Himachal Pradesh Joint Director of Sports Suman Rawat said Manisha represented the state twice in kabaddi meets - National Women National Festival in 2006 and Senior National Championship in 2007. In both championships, the state won bronze.

“On the basis of her participation (in the national meets), she got selected in the railways in 2008,” Rawat told IANS in Shimla.

Mehar Singh Verma, her coach at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) hostel at Dharamsala in the hill state, said she was a good player. She got training in the SAI from 2005 to 2008.

Born Aug 23, 1987, Manisha was the eldest daughter of Yashpal Thakur and Bhagmati. She has two sisters and a brother.