Indian army officer commits suicide in Indian-controlled Kashmir

A junior commissioned officer (JCO) of Indian army committed suicide in Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said Saturday.

The officer Friday evening committed suicide using his service rifle inside a camp stationed at Shalteng on the outskirts of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"A JCO of Indian army last night committed suicide by shooting himself with his service rifle at a camp here," Lt. Col. N N Joshi, an Indian army spokesman, told Xinhua. "A case has been registered in this regard and an inquiry has been ordered into the incident."

Though the JCO was removed immediately to hospital but doctors declared him brought dead, reports said.

"Early morning medical teams were rushed to carry out postmortem on his body," said Joshi.

The incident came two days after an Indian army trooper went berserk inside his camp and killed five of his colleagues with his service rifle before shooting himself dead at Safapoora village of Bandipora district, about 35 km north of Srinagar

Sources said the erring trooper had a verbal brawl with his colleagues hours before he went on the killing spree.

Indian troops stationed in Indian-controlled Kashmir, battling armed insurgency are reported to be under a lot of stress and strain.

Last year eight cases of suicide were recorded among Indian troops and police and four were killed in fratricide.

Indian-controlled Kashmir is considered as the highest militarized region. Officially India does not reveal the actual number of its troops deployed in the troubled region. However, rights activists said there are over 700,000 Indian troops and paramilitary troops in the region fighting an anti-India insurgency.

During the past more than two decades, several incidents of suicide and fratricide among the stationed troops were reported.

Health experts said continued separation from family, long duty hours, lack of recreational facilities, poor command and control structure were usually found to be behind such incidents.

A guerrilla war is going on between militants and Indian troops stationed in the restive region since 1989.