- Saturday, March 01, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
The recent incident at a military base in Bathinda in the northern Indian state of Punjab where an Indian soldier has been arrested over the killing of four others has flagged off a serious discussion over the issue of fratricide in the country’s military and paramilitary forces.
In military parlance, fratricide refers to an act of a soldier or security personnel killing their own colleagues.
According to a Reuters report, several studies held over the last two decades have attributed fratricides and suicides in the Indian military forces to factors such as stress and depression.
On Monday (17), police in Punjab said they arrested the soldier at Bathinda military station following the murder of four colleagues there last week.
According to sources in the army, the soldier had “confessed to his involvement” in stealing an assault weapon and killing four colleagues and that “initial investigations indicate that this was apparently due to personal reasons or animosity”, the report added.
The Indian defence ministry said in July last year that the three wings of the Indian military — army, navy and air force — have seen more than 800 personnel committing suicide since 2017.
The South Asian nation’s military has about 1.4 million active personnel, making it the second largest in the world.
As per official data unveiled in February 2020, India’s junior defence minister told the parliament that the ministry launched a mental health programme in 2009 which focuses on stress management and identifies and counsels those at high risk of combat stress, the Reuters report added.
Retired Major-General AP Singh told the news outlet that the incident in Bathinda was not a case of accidental blue-on-blue killing and that internal frustration, revenge, fear of getting caught for a misdeed and bad relations between soldiers are some of the main factors.
A 2020 study by a serving army officer and published by India’s United Service Institution, reported a “significant increase in stress levels” among army personnel in the last two decades caused by operational and non-operational stress.
“Presently more than half of Indian Army personnel seem to be under severe stress,” it said.
