Friday, January 23, 2009

Indian Army fratricide is increasing reprehensibly

The time has come for the Indian Army and also the Government of India to give consideration to the basic reasons behind these shocking incidents.

This information may make you astounded but it’s true that internal conflicts within the Armed Forces of India are taking ugly turn and are resulting into gruesome murders.

According to the latest statistics, in excess of 70 officers and men have died in these incidents of killings in the Indian defence forces ever since 2001. The tale is not only degrading but also makes people sceptical of the internal structure of the Armed Forces.


There have already been several incidents where the senior officers in the forces have become subjects of grudges of stressed Indian soldiers and have been killed. Reasons?

While in some instances the soldiers were denied leave for long periods during tough counter-insurgency operations, there were other reasons too. Though these are highly contemptible, they do regularly happen and the last in this regard is the incident of the Assam Rifles, India’s elite paramilitary force.

A soldier of the force has shot dead six of his colleagues creating a sensation among different echelons. As stated by the spokesman for the force, Major Shamsher Jung, the shocking incident took place at a remote camp of the force in the Ukhrul district in India’s north-eastern state of Manipur. The name of the soldier is TS Tangkhul, who is learnt to have fled after the incident and is yet to be arrested.

What was the immediate reason of this flare-up? Well, it is not known till now but the problem started when the crook or TS Tangkhul got enraged owing to a frenzied squabble with another soldier. Tangkhul was suddenly seen to take up his own arms and shot dead his colleague.

He was, at once, surrounded by five soldiers of the unit who tried to disarm him. TS Tangkhul, without more ado, killed all of them and ran away.

Though a huge manhunt has already begun to procure the “criminal’ soldier by any means, it is not clear what led to the ghastly incident.

If he was distraught due to individual secluded fife, the Indian Army must look into the matter apart from punishing him in accordance with the Army Code. These incidents are increasing and it is not desirable.