Chetia’s wife Agamoni Borbaruah, 40, died at Nemcare Hospital at 4.25pm and the senior bureaucrat walked into her ICU cabin barely 10 minutes later, requesting the medical staff to allow him some privacy for praying next to his wife’s body.
A gunshot rang out soon after the staff exited the cabin, the hospital said.
“We rushed in and found him lying beside his wife’s body. We tried to save him but couldn’t. He had shot himself,” Nemcare’s managing director Hitesh Baruah said.
Baruah said Agamoni was being treated at the hospital for about two months. “Three days ago, her condition deteriorated. We explained her condition to Chetia and he understood.”
The couple, who had an arranged marriage on May 12, 2013, didn’t have a child.
Assam home and political secretary Shiladitya Chetia, who shot himself minutes after his wife passed away in hospital, had braved a series of unfortunate happenings in his life lately, with his spouse’s death being possibly the unkindest cut, said former Assam Police DGP Bhaskarjyoti Mahanta, now the state’s chief information commissioner.
“He was like a younger brother to me,” said Mahanta, who reached Nemcare after being informed of the tragedy. “His life was full of problems…He lost his mother and mother-in-law not long ago. He was taking care of his wife, and was in Chennai for treatment. I was in touch with him and there was no indication that he would take this step.”
DGP G P Singh announced Chetia’s death through a post on X. “In an unfortunate turn of events, Shiladitya Chetia, IPS 2009, secretary home and political, took his own life this evening, a few minutes after the attending physician declared the death of his wife who was battling cancer for a long time. Entire Assam Police family is in deep grief,” he wrote.
Chetia, whose father was also a police officer, had stints as superintendent of police in Tinsukia, Nalbari, Kokrajhar and Barpeta districts.
Known for his derring-do, he led multiple operations against criminal and terror outfits, for which he received the President’s Police Medal for Gallantry on Independence Day in 2015. Agamoni, too, was an achiever. She studied English and foreign languages at Tezpur University and was a topper, a source close to the family said.