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Updated: Dec 22, 2015 20:18 IST

A 25-year-old software engineer said to be suffering from depression attacked people on the streets with a sword on Tuesday and injured 24 people, including his parents and two policemen, before being shot dead.

Balvinder Singh, a resident of Karimnagar, was undergoing treatment for psychological problems following his failure in the civil services examination recently, according to reports.

An employee with a multinational IT firm in Bengaluru, Balvinder was staying with his parents for the past one month and undergoing treatment.

Watch | Depressed techie injures 24 in sword attack in Telengana

“This morning at about 6.30am we got a call from Laxmi Nagar area about a person roaming with a sword, slashing everyone he saw on the street. When our team reached there, he even attacked two of our men and tried to snatch a pistol from our CI. In unavoidable circumstances, our officer had to shoot at him,” L Subbarayudu, additional SP (operations), Karimnagar told Hindustan Times.

Man goes on a stabbing spree, injures 22 people in Karimnagar, Telangana. Sword wielding man shot dead by Police https://t.co/Ra0nLWWAck — CNN-IBN News (@ibnlive) December 22, 2015

An eyewitness said that Balvinder also injured himself with the sword and damaged the windshield of a vehicle parked in the area.

Singh was taken to a hospital, where he succumbed to the bullet injury.

“It was bloodshed at his home and in the street. If he had reached the bus stand nearby, more people would have been injured. This seems to be a clear case of depression though we are probing the matter in detail,” the police official said.

“His mother is recovering though she is not able to talk to anybody at the moment. His father is severely injured. We will be able to get more details only when they talk. Then only will we be able to assess as to what actually prompted him (Balvinder) to behave like that,” SubbaRayudu told PTI.

Further inquiries are on into the incident, police added.

(With inputs from PTI)