Patna, Dec 27 (IANS): In a bid to save himself from police action, a man jumped into a river in Bihar’s Samastipur district and drowned.

The incident happened on Tuesday evening. The victim, Appu Kumar (28) was cleaning his clothes on the bank of a river when a police team from the town police station chased some persons near the railway bridge in Samastipur.

Appu felt that police might be chasing him and in a bid to save himself, jumped into the river and died.

Following the incident, local residents went on a rampage and attacked the police team.

They damaged two police vans. The police team managed to save themselves and fled from the spot.

The local residents claimed that police unnecessarily penalized them in the name of liquor prohibition.

“Police checks are carried out every day. We have learnt that a man went to the river to take a bath. He was cleaning the clothes and jumped into the river. We are investigating the incident,” said Sanjay Kumar, DSP Sadar Samastipur.

“We called for the SDRF team which fished out the body and handed it over to the family members after the post-mortem,” Kumar said. Ends.