A serviceman of the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan jumped into the Kofarnikhon River in the Vakhdat region and drowned. 23-year-old Shahboz Jonmahmadzoda, a resident of Fayzabad, joined the army eight months ago and served in the mine engineering battalion of the Ministry of Defense in the Rudaki region, Radio Ozodi reports.
One of his relatives, in a telephone conversation with Ozodi on April 28, citing witnesses, said that Shahboz handed his mobile phone to a woman passing by and suddenly jumped off the bridge into the river.
“The woman thought that he handed her the phone for a photograph, and when she saw what was happening, she was very scared. He didn’t tell her anything. Other passers-by also witnessed it. “He swam about 500-600 meters in the water, but then disappeared under water,” the relative said.
A soldier of the military unit in which Shahboz Jonmakhmadzoda served was also present at the scene, but he refused to talk on the phone with an Ozodi correspondent.
Now Shahboz’s relatives and local residents are looking for his body. According to his relatives, the soldier was on 10-day leave and was supposed to return to his place of duty today, April 28. They also said he complained about poor service conditions and said his kidneys hurt. On this day, he said that he would go to the hospital in the city of Vahdat for examination.
Relatives say that they do not know why Shahboz decided to take this action – nothing foreshadowed such a development of events. A year ago the guy got married and has a five-month-old child.
