Malla family heir shoots self at Bishnupur Rajbari

Bankura: A descendant of Bishnupur ’s Malla royal family and patron of the Mrinmayee temple reportedly shot himself on Saturday morning in his ancestral house — popularly known here as ‘Rajbari’ — with a gun belonging to the family.

Salil Singha Thakur (62), a retired teacher of a primary school, had a gout problem and had of late sunk into depression, his wife Alpana and son Samrat said.

Local residents, however, claim the royal descendants are caught in a legal property dispute. Bishnupur SDPO Priyabrata Baxi said the body had been sent for post-mortem. “Prima facie, it appears to be a case of suicide ,” he added.

The Malla descendants have a history of suicides. Salil, the youngest of four brothers, is the third to kill himself. Family friend Swapan Ghosh said one of Salil’s elder brothers had jumped to his death into a well on the Rajbari premises while another had poisoned himself. Ghosh couldn’t recall exactly when these suicides happened, but said they did “a very long time ago”.

Currently, heirs of none of Salil’s siblings live in the ancestral house. The former teacher occupied the entire Rajbari with his wife and his son after his daughter got married. The Mrinmayee temple of Bishnupur is part of the Rajbari premises.

“My husband organised Durga Puja at the temple every year. It drew people from Kolkata and other parts of the state. I don’t know what happened (today) and how. My son and I were in another part of the house while my husband was lounging in a chair on the ground floor living room, where he shot himself,” Alpana said.

She refused to dwell on the suicides of her two brothers-in-law.

Local folklore has it that Gopal Singha Thakur established the Malla rule in Bishnupur some 500 years ago. Under the British, the once royal dynasty was downgraded to the level of zamindars, the last of whom was Salil’s father Kalipada Singha Thakur.