CHENNAI: A 22-year-old army rifleman allegedly shot his senior officer and later killed himself in the early hours of Tuesday at the Army camp in Chennai.
Preliminary investigations suggested that the senior officer may have reprimanded the rifleman for being lethargic on duty enraged by which the latter took the extreme step.
However, ex-servicemen say incidents like this could be due to a culmination of a series of ill treatment that is meted out by senior army officers- a common excess within the armed forces.
Parveen Kumar Joshi (39), who was killed by the rifleman, was a native of Dehradun in Uttarakhand and was an army officer in the rank of Havildar. The rifleman, Jagseer Singh (22) was a native of Punjab. Both belonged to the Jammu and Kashmir rifles battalion.
“On Monday night, Jagseer Singh was on duty at the armory in the Army camp at Pallavaram. Parveen Kumar Joshi was on night rounds when he found Jagseer to be lethargic on duty.
The Army officers told us that Jagseer was caught unawares when Havildar Parveen Kumar entered the barracks and found him sitting down,” said K P S Devaraj, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Pallavaram range).
Havildar Parveen Kumar had punished Jagseer Singh for 10 minutes. It is not clear what kind of punishment he was given, said the police officer.
“Havildar Parveen Kumar had warned Jagseer after the punishment and left to his barrack tent for the night. At around 3.45am, when Jagseer’s duty was about to get over, he entered the tent and opened fire on the Havildar who was sleeping,” said the police officer.
Jagseer Singh had INSAS 5.56mm rifle that fires three rounds of bullets per second. As the Havildar was lying to the right side, the bullets hit the left side of his rib cage, instantly killing him.
“Hearing the sound of the automatic gun, others ran towards the tent and saw Jagseer Singh coming out of the Havildar’s tent with the rifle and ran towards him to nab him.
Jagseer tried to escape after which he killed himself by turning the gun towards himself,” said the police officer. Three rounds of bullets entered Jagseer’s stomach killing him on the spot.
The bodies were taken to the military hospital in St Thomas Mount and later sent for post mortem to the Rajiv Gandhi Government hospital.
Police said that battalion had come to Chennai for a brief period before going on duty to Jammu and Kashmir. “Jagseer had easily entered the tent of Havildar since it was a makeshift camp. Had it been the army quarters he could have not entered,” said the officer.
Speaking to Express under anonymity, an ex-serviceman who retired in the rank of Subedar said that junior ranked personnel turning against senior officers or their own men is common in the armed services. "In the armed services, every senior ranked officer is given few junior rank personnel based on their position and it is their duty to obey the orders of their superiors. Unable to bear the mental pressure, some resign from the armed services while others take the extreme step like this - killing the officer who bullied them or some end up committing suicide,” he said.
Defending the superiors, another ex-serviceman said, “We do not salute the man, we salute the rank. Every jawan knows what he is signing up for. Soon after the training, it is common for officers to feel disappointed as they joined the army to serve the nation but instead are sent to serve their superiors. The patience to wait for the right time to rise in the hierarchy is diminishing day by day."
(Assistance for those having suicidal thoughts is available on Tamil Nadu’s health helpline 104 and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050)