New Delhi: A firing incident inside Bhatinda military station in Punjab killed four people on April 12, 2023. The state police has termed it as incident of fratricide.
In South Block, Army Chief General Manoj Pande briefed Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the issue.
The Headquarters of South Western Command said, "The incident took place at 4:35 a.m. The search operations are underway."
The four personnel, in their mid 20s, were sleeping when the firing took place around 4.30 am near the barracks behind a mess.
The slain jawans were identified as Sagar Banne (25), Kamalesh R (24), Yogesh Kumar J (24) and Santosh M Nagaral (25), police said.
The Indian Army has officially lodged an FIR in the firing incident at Bathinda military station.
The FIR said that two unidentified 'masked' men wearing kurta-pajama were spotted around the army station at the time of the incident. The faces of the suspects were covered and while one carried an INSAS rifle, another carried an axe.
Meanwhile, Indian Army found the INSAS rifle that was reported missing at the Bathinda Military Station.
It was suspected that the missing rifle was used in the firing incident. The joint teams of the Army and Punjab Police will now conduct a forensic analysis of the weapon for ascertaining further details.
Bathinda SSP Gulneet Khurana said initial inputs suggest an army soldier possibly opened fire at others in the secured campus.
Bathinda is an important military installation and houses the headquarters of 10 Corps, which comes under the Jaipur-based South Western Command. The station is also home to a large number of operational Army units and other static establishments.
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