CRPF jawan opens fire on colleagues, kills four

Raipur: A CRPF jawan opened fire on his colleagues in their camp in Chhattisgarh’s south Bastar district of Sukma early on Monday morning, killing four security personnel and injuring three others.

This is the fifth incident of fratricidal killing in Bastar in the last two years. A total of 14 security personnel have lost their lives in these fratricidal cases.

“A CRPF jawan opened fire on his colleagues in the Linganpali camp of 50th CRPF battalion killing four security personnel and injuring three others. The incident took place at around 3.15 hours. The immediate provocation for the incident was yet to be ascertained,” Bastar range inspector general of police Sunderraj P. told this newspaper.

According to him, the accused jawan, Reteesh Ranjan, was supposed to do his sentry duty from 0400 hours onwards. After getting ready for the duty he indiscriminately opened fire on other jawans sleeping in the barrack.

A total of seven CRPF jawans were injured in the incident. They were rushed to a hospital in Bhadrachalam in the neighbouring state of Telangana where the doctors declared four of them "brought dead".

Of the three injured, two were airlifted to Raipur in Chhattisgarh by an Indian Air Force chopper.

The four slain jawans have been identified as Dhanji, Rajib Mondal, Rajmani Kumar Yadav and Dharmendra Kumar.

Those injured in the incident were Dhananjay Kumar Singh, Dharmatma Kumar and Malay Ranjan Maharana.

A senior police officer described the incident as case of "emotional stress leading to sudden psychological misbalance”.

The accused jawan’s leave application was already sanctioned and he was to go on leave on November 13, a senior CRPF officer said, requesting not to be quoted.

This was the fifth incident of fratricidal killing in Bastar in the last two years.

In January this year, a jawan of 241st Bastariya Battalion opened fire on his colleagues in Sedma security camp in Bastar district, killing a jawan.

In May 2020, an assistance platoon commander of Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF)’s ninth battalion shot dead two security personnel, including his platoon commander, in his camp Aamdai in south Bastar district of Narayanpur.

In December 2019, a jawan of Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP)’s 45th battalion opened fire on his colleagues in their camp in Kedanar in Narayanpur district killing five jawans and injuring two others.

In June 2019, a CAF jawan shot dead his two colleagues in their camp in Mingachal in south Bastar district of Bijapur.

Chhattisgarh director general of police (DGP) D.M. Awasthi in June 2020 issued a directive to district police authorities concerned in Bastar division comprising seven districts to launch "Spandan campaign" to "de-stress" the jawans by redressing their personal grievances, forcing the jawans who are found to be under stress to go for counselling and medical treatments and ensuring the jawans practise yoga.