Srinagar: In a rare incident of its kind among Jammu and Kashmir police ranks, a policeman shoot himself dead at District Police Lines Budgam in central Kashmir, officials said on Monday.
They said that Head constable Mohammad Shafi Mir, who was in his mid-forties, shot himself dead with his service.
A resident of Sadoora village of south Kashmir’s Kulgam district, Mir took the extreme step early on Monday and the officials said that police was probing the case.
It is very rare that a policeman from Kashmir commits suicide. There is infact no word in Kashmiri language for suicide, suggesting that such means is not part of Kashmir’s ethos.
While it is very rare among J&K police ranks, the suicides by other government forces is very common, not only with three Indian defence services but also among paramilitary forces.
Among defence personnel committing suicide, Indian Army heads the lists as per the official data.
In 2018, a total of 80 army personnel committed suicide while such number was 16 in Air Force and 8 in the Navy, Minister of State (MoS) for Defence Subhash Bhamre told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply earlier this year.
In 2017, the number of army men, who are suspected to have committed suicide, was 75 while in 2016, this number was 104.
In the Air Force, the number of suspected suicides was 21 in 2017 and 19 in 2016. For the Navy, these numbers were 5 and 6 for 2017 and 2016, respectively.
In last seven years, a total of 228 CRPF personnel committed suicide and as per a written reply in Rajya Sabha by Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, the causative factors in most of the cases were found to be generally the personal and domestic problems besides work related stress.
