Crime: The 22-year-old man, detained by Thimphu police on February 9, suspected to have been involved in the death of a 24-year-old security guard with the Jachung Security Services has confessed to the crime, according to police.

The deceased was found unconscious in the national referral hospital’s trolley ramp located on level three bleeding from his nose and mouth. He succumbed to his injuries the same night.

According to the suspect’s statement to police, a laundry staff asked him to stop people from entering the wards before the doctors make their rounds on the morning of February 8.

There was a tussle between the deceased and the suspect after the deceased told the alleged suspect that he was not allowed in the ward, during the deceased’s morning rounds at around 8am on the day of the incident.

The suspect was in the wards till 6pm that day.

The deceased who had night duty on the same day again asked the suspect to leave when he was about to sleep in the patient’s store room located on level three.

The alleged suspect confessed that he followed the deceased who opened the biometric door to leave the ward using the trolley ramp, after his rounds. He then punched the deceased on the throat, who then fell and hit his head on the ramp’s cement railing. The deceased then fell onto the ramp’s floor.

The deceased had his trachea broken and suffered severe internal head injuries which caused the death, according to medical reports.

To avoid suspicion, the alleged suspect used the trolley ramp to move to the second level and then back to the orthopedic and surgical wards on level three using the stairs. He sat with a few patients and talked for about thirty minutes.

A police official said that if there were CCTV cameras installed in the ramp area then the footage would show what exactly happened between the deceased and the alleged suspect. “The footage could also be presented as evidence in the court of law,”  said the official.

The alleged suspect had worked as a laundry boy with the hospital for about a year after he got terminated in February 2 for not performing well. He also worked part time as a bouncer in one of the drayangs in Thimphu.

Although the suspect doesn’t have any work at the hospital, according to hospital staff, the suspect visits the hospital frequently and sleeps in the patient’s storeroom in the hospital.

The suspect spent his days in the hospital’s orthopedic and surgical wards on level three, talking with patients.

The suspect usually wore the uniform of laundry staff and loitered in the hospital.

According to their statements, security personnel at the hospital were aware that the alleged suspect did not work with the hospital anymore and asked him not to loiter in the hospital.

Meanwhile, the alleged suspect, in his confession to police, claimed that the security personnel did not like him and always picked on him.

The alleged suspect is a repeat convict. He was convicted for larceny in Taba, and a few battery cases prior.

The alleged suspect confessed that he acted alone in the crime.

He is charged for voluntarily manslaughter.

Dechen Tshomo

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