Retired judge shoots himself in Ghaziabad home

GHAZIABAD: A 76-year-old retired additional district judge allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth with his licenced double-barrel gun at his Ghaziabad home early on Friday.
Devdutt Sharma’s family said he had been taking medicines for depression and used to feel lonely since the death of his wife Satyavati in March last year. No suicide note was found in the room where Sharma was found dead.

The retired judge lived with the families of his two sons — Sachin Gaur, an assistant general manager (human resources) with a media house, and Manish Sharma, an advocate — in their two-storey house in Nehru Nagar (III) M Block. Sharma had seven daughters, whom he had married off. While the septuagenarian lived on the ground floor, his sons and their families stayed on the upper floors.

Sharma is likely to have shot himself between 3am and 4am on Friday. The family, however, came to know about the alleged suicide around 6am when Manish’s wife went to the retired judge’s room to serve him tea. The family said they had not heard any gunshot, probably because of sound emanating from a malfunctioning air-conditioner.

Sharma’s son Sachin said his father would feel lonely ever since the untimely death of his mother last year.

“He suffered from some age-related ailments, including diabetes, but was otherwise quite fit. He used to wake up at 4am and go for a walk at the Nehru stadium every day,” he added.

Sachin said he did not sense anything amiss when he spoke to his father after dinner on Friday night and enquired about his health.

A relative said Sharma had called up his daughter Mona twice in the night and asked her to come and meet him. “The family had no inkling if anything was wrong with Sharma. He was a disciplined person and quite active in the RWA’s activities. People would come and seek his advice in legal matters as well,” the relative added.

Sharma had started his career in Saharanpur and retired in Muzaffarnagar in 2002. He had served in courts in many places, such as Aligarh, Ghaziabad, Kanpur and Pilibhit, among others.

SHO, Sihani Gate, Vinod Kumar Pandey said the body had been handed over to the family after a postmortem.