AMRITSAR: A
BSF constable brooding over allegedly long duty hours and leave-related issues on Sunday shot and killed four senior colleagues during breakfast in their mess near the Indo-Pakistan border in
Punjab’s Attari before he was himself fatally wounded in the melee. A sixth trooper was critically injured in the fragging incident at Khasa village in Amritsar district.
Assailant Satteppa SK, a Karnataka native attached to BSF’s 114 Battalion, opened fire indiscriminately from his service weapon, instantly killing head constables Rattan Singh of J&K, Baljinder Kumar of Haryana’s Panipat, D S Toraskar from Maharashtra and Ram Binod of Bihar.
The injured trooper, identified as
Rahul, is being treated in an Amritsar hospital.
Whether Satteppa shot himself or faced retaliatory fire couldn’t be immediately confirmed. He died of gunshot injuries while being taken to hospital, the paramilitary force said.
BSF instituted a court of inquiry into the killings, but there was no official word till late in the evening about what might have driven constable Satteppa to the edge.
“Incidents of fratricide happen within forces the world over. These incidents are inquired into and corrective steps taken,” former BSF inspector general (Punjab frontier) M S Malhi said. “It is not possible to forecast or prevent such incidents since every jawan carries weapons.”
Besides being unhappy over his duty hours and leave, Satteppa was possibly nursing a grudge against some colleagues, sources said.
Expressing concern over BSF jawans deployed on the international border being allegedly overworked, Amritsar MP
Gurjeet Singh Aujla tweeted, “Once wrote to @HMOIndia informing about the excess duty @BSF_India personnel perform at Punjab borders. Had also filed a question in Lok Sabha in this regard. @PMOIndia needs to review the actual state of affairs of Punjab frontiers, which might have been eclipsed by some nexus.”
In November, a CRPF constable suspected to be battling stress emptied an entire AK-47 magazine on his sleeping colleagues at their barracks in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma, killing four of them and injuring three.