Jamshedpur, Sept. 28: A retired government employee today jumped from Mango bridge into the Subernarekha in front of his wife.

The incident comes three days after an 11-year-old attempted suicide at the same spot. Though the boy was saved, Kedarnath Mishra (62) is suspected to have been swept away by the strong current of the river.

A resident of Astha Apartment in Mango, Mishra was returning home from Sakchi on a motorcycle with his wife at 2pm. As they started crossing the Mango bridge, Mishra stopped in the middle of the bridge and asked his wife to wait for sometime. Having parked a little distance away, the old man climbed the railing of the bridge and jumped into the river.

His wife, Lalita, turned speechless for a moment and subsequently started screaming for help, leading passers-by to gather at the spot. But before people could understand what was happening, Mishra had already been swept by the strong river currents. Within a few minutes, a police team arrived and made attempts to locate the body along the river, but the man was nowhere in sight.

“We had been to our relative’s house in Adityapur in the morning. Having returned home, we had once again gone out together to Baradwari. While returning home, he stopped the vehicle and asked me to wait. But I watched him climb the railing of the bridge and then jump down,” Lalita said.

“He had a dispute with one Shyam Singh, who had threatened to shoot himself if my husband failed to find any amicable solution, over a plot at Dimna. I think it was the land dispute that caused my husband to take such a drastic step,” she said.

Attempts for tracing the body are still on.

Sub-inspector of Sitaramdera police station Rajiv Kumar Singh said that the body may have been swept away towards Ghatshila as there was a strong current in the river. He claimed that the efforts were still on to locate the body.