Dantewada, March 12: A Special Task Force (STF) jawan allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his service weapon in Chhattisgarh's Dantewada district on Thursday, a police official said.

Constable Ramaram Swami shot himself with his service rifle in the wee hours outside his barrack in Potali camp under Aranpur police station limits, the official told PTI.

After hearing the gunshot, his colleagues rushed to the spot and found him lying in a pool of blood. The body was sent to a local hospital for postmortem, he said. The exact reason which prompted him to take the extreme step was yet to be ascertained, the official said.

Swami was a native of Chala village in Rajasthan's Sikar district and his family members have been informed about the incident, he said. Personnel from the Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF), District Reserve Guard (DRG) and STF were deployed at the Potali camp, located in a strategically important core Maoist area, after it was set upin November last year.

On March 4 this year, a CAF jawan allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with his service weapon in Naryanpur district. As many as 50 police personnel, including those from the paramilitary forces, committed suicide in Chhattisgarh in the last two years, the government informed state Assembly last month. Of these suicide cases, 18 were reported from six districts of the Naxal-affected Bastar division.