A police officer on Monday morning committed suicide within Cianda Police Patrol Base in Kiambu County.
According to Anthony Mwangi Njau who is in charge of Cianda Police Patrol Base the officer identified as Charles Maina Wachira, 42, had committed suicide within the police lines.
As soon as the matter was reported, officers drawn from Kiambu Police station and detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) rushed to the scene and found the body of the officers hanging in his house.
“He found the body of the said officer hanging from a ventilation in his house within Cianda Police Patrol Base line using a bag carrier belt which he had picked with a stick from outside,” a police report filed at the station read.
Police said that there was no suicide note that was found at the scene.
Equally, there was no visible injuries seen on his body.
Scene was processed by sleuths from DCI headquarters on Kiambu Road and the body was taken to Kenyatta University Referral Hospital Mortuary awaiting autopsy.
Cases of police officers committing suicide or killing civilians have been on the rise in the recent past.
A report by the DCI says at least 500 people have committed suicide in separate incidents in three months (March-June) in the country.
The report added some 409 people were seriously assaulted during the same period, between March and June.
The country has also witnessed an increase in intimate partner killings and family-based crimes partly due to the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and mental health issues.
The data released by the DCI indicated that men were more prone to committing suicide than women.
