A BSF head constable died after being allegedly shot by his subordinate in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district following a scuffle in a BSF camp near Mader late on Monday night, police said. Constable Ravinder Singh of Kupwara has been taken into custody as a suspect. The deceased, Chandrabhan, was from Kurukshetra in Haryana and a senior police officer from Bandipora said that internal strife may be the reason behind the firing. An FIR has been registered at Bandipora police station and postmortem has confirmed the cause of death. BSF spokesperson refused to comment on questions of internal strife in the force and said that the BSF IG is in Bandipora to look into the matter. Locals said that they heard a few gunshots fearing a militant attack at the camp, but came to know about the incident from the police in the morning. Earlier in July, an Army major attached to the 8 Rashtriya Rifles unit was shot dead by his subordinate in Uri. The accused fired on Major Shikhar Thapa after being reprimanded for using a mobile phone while on guard duty. In March, Subhash Bhamre, Minister of State for Defence had informed the Lok Sabha of 348 cases of suicide in the armed forces since 2014. Eight cases of fratricide were also reported during the period.
