Chhattisgarh: Two CAF jawans killed, two injured as colleague opens fire

RAIPUR: Two Chhattisgarh Armed Force (CAF) jawans were killed and two injured when their colleague fired at them in a camp in Balrampur district, north Chhattisgarh, on Wednesday.
The accused jawan was overpowered by other colleagues and is now in police custody. It’s not yet known what triggered the fragging.
Balrampur SP Rajesh Agrawal, who was on the spot, told TOI that the fragging took place at Bhutahi camp where CAF 11th Battalion was deployed.The camp is located on the Chhattisgarh-Jharkhand border, close to the insurgency-hit region in the neighbouring state.
The SP identified the shooter as Ajay Sidar. According to preliminary information, Ajay had an argument over something ‘missing’ in the meals and it infuriated him so much that he unslung his Insas rifle and opened fire on his colleagues around 11.30am.
Four of them were hit. Constable Rupesh Patel died on the spot, and another constable, Sandeep Pandey, succumbed to his injuries on the way to hospital, the SP said. Constables Ambuj Shukla and Rahul Baghel were admitted to community health care centres in Kusmi, 430km from Raipur. Shukla is in critical condition and has been shifted to Ambikapur.
Other jawans bravely tackled Ajay and wrestled the rifle from him before he could shoot anyone else.
The last such incident happened in Maoist-affected Kanker district of Bastar when a CAF head constable was shot dead by a junior in December 2022. In November 2021, a CRPF constable battling emotional stress, fired at his sleeping colleagues in their barracks in Maoist-hit Sukma, killing four of them and injuring three. He had emptied an entire magazine (30 bullets) of an AK47.
According to a police officer, over 22 security personnel have been killed in fragging since 2019. Two CAF jawans were killed in June 2019 in Bijapur and two others were killed in a similar incident in Narayanpur district in May 2020.