ITBP jawan in Bastar camp shoots down 5 colleagues, then kills himself

india

Updated: Dec 04, 2019 15:00 IST

Five Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel deployed in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region to fight Maoists were shot dead by another soldier at the paramilitary force’s camp on Wednesday morning. The constable who turned his service weapon on his colleagues shot himself dead, a senior police officer said.

Two more jawans were also injured in the incident that took place a little before 9 am.

“The incident took place at the Kedarnar camp of ITBP’s 45th battalion in Narayanpur,” Inspector General of Police (Bastar range) Sundarraj P said.

Police said the provocation for the fratricidal killing at a camp 350 km from state capital Raipur is still unclear.

In Delhi, an ITBP spokesperson confirmed that the constable shot himself after firing at seven personnel.

Of the five security personnel that were killed, two were head constables.

Those killed were identified by ITBP as head constable M Singh, constable Sujit Sarkar, head constable Duljit, constable Biswarup Mahato and constable Brijesh AC

Narayanpur, a left-wing extremism affected district in Chhattisgarh, is crucial for anti-Maoist operations because it provides direct access to the densely forested Abujhmad.

Straddled between Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, Abujhmad, or the ‘unknown hill’ has been the epicentre of Maoist activities for decades. About a dozen Central Committee members of CPI (Maoist) are said to be still camping there. The forest, stretching across 6,000 sq km, has not been surveyed since Independence because of the terrain, and over the last few decades, Maoist guerrillas. The state had tried to conduct a survey in 2017 but had to abort the plan after attacks by Maoists.