Angered by the punishment handed down by his senior yesterday afternoon, a depressed CRPF jawan turned on his sleeping colleagues after midnight, killing two officers and five policemen before being killed in retaliatory fire.According to CRPF officers, Samrendra Deka, who had a history of mental problems, burst into F-Company Commander Sadhu Ram’s room at the 152 Battalion camp at 12.30 a.m, shot him, his junior officer and five other colleagues before he was shot dead by another badly-injured jawan.The 30-minute shooting spree, which many mistook initially for a fidayeen attack, was the result of a spat Deka had with Sadhu Ram, which led to the jawan being punished with extra guard duty, officers said.‘‘Something was keeping him agitated and he was taking medicines regularly for his mental problems. Something went wrong yesterday for which he was punished. In the night, he fired indiscriminately killing seven colleagues and injuring two before he was shot dead,’’ said Ranjit Sinha, Inspector General, CRPF, in Srinagar.Deka had been suffering from mental problems for some months, tending to get agitated very fast, officers said. Two other jawans, who were injured in the gunfire inside the heavily-fortified camp at Deewan Bagh here, were later discharged from hospital.A probe has been ordered into the circumstances that led to the bloodbath, Sinha said.Last year, a CRPF jawan had shot three of his colleagues, near Bakshi Stadium in Srinagar, after he was refused leave. This year, an Army Colonel was shot dead here by his junior.However, Sinha said yesterday’s incident was an ‘‘aberration’’. ‘‘This type of an incident is not peculiar to the CRPF, every other force here has experienced an incident like this. It’s just an individual aberration, a deviant cop gone berserk,’’ he said.According to one of Deka’s colleagues, Anil Kumar, ‘‘We were woken up by a burst of gunfire that sent everybody scampering for their guns. We took positions inside, fearing that the Fidayeen had attacked us. But we didn’t fire and then colleagues informed us about the sad news.’’
