A police constable went berserk and allegedly gunned down three persons, including a colleague, near a temple today at a village on the Rajasthan-Uttar Pradesh border.
Chandrakant Dixit of Rajasthan police posted at the Punchari outpost in Deeg area first shot Sharda, the 62-year-old wife of the priest of Punchari temple and then her husband when he tried to stop him, Mathura Senior Superintendent of Police Satyendra Veer Singh said.
When Dixit's 35-year-old colleague Kunvar Pal Punchari tried to intervene, he was also shot, Singh said. All three died on the spot. After a stand-off with police officials lasting a few hours, Dixit finally handed over the rifle to a sadhu in the temple and was overpowered.
Teams from Rajasthan and UP which reached the spot soon after the incident were unable initially to take 40-year-old Dixit into custody because he refused to surrender his rifle. Police said they were still clueless about the motive behind the shootout. Rajasthan Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria had earlier said that the constable was suspected to be mentally disturbed.