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Army talks about stress and soldiers
Published on Sun, Mar 11, 2007 at 12:25, Updated on Wed, Jun 20, 2007 at 03:19 in 
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Srinagar: On October 29 2006 a jawan in Kashmir shot dead a Lt Colonel. This incident was followed by three similar shootouts where jawans have killed their own men.
The force is now looking for answers and Army medical experts blame stress for rise in such incidents.
“We are alarmed, and are undertaking all measures. Unfortunately it has been found that it is mainly the family problems, marital disharmony and non-redressal of problems. People who are younger age groups – seven to eight years of service are more prone. Failed love affairs are also a reason and we can’t do anything about it,” says Director General Armed Forces Medical Services, Ministry of Defence, Lt gen LP Sadotra.
A fact worth mentioning is that most of these cases have been reported from conflict-ridden areas. But, the Army's recent analysis attributes only 0.3 per cent of fragging incidents and suicides to operational stress.
We have done an analysis and 0.3 is due to operational stress. The rest is other factors. It is basically anger and when you are working long hours anger gets exaggerated. The system already exists we will fine tune. Right form the training stage we need to fine-tune it now and we will have more psychiatrists in operational areas,” says Sadotra.
In 2006 itself there've been over 10 cases of Army shoot-outs, with six of them in Jammu and Kashmir alone. In March, an Army jawan shot four of his colleagues and committed suicide in Jammu.
A jawan shot a Major in Manjakote last year in September and there were three more case in October.
In the past six years army suicides have increased from 36 deaths in 2001, the number shot up to 80 in 2002. In 2003, 96 cases were reported and the number touched hundred in 2004. In 2005 there were 97 deaths and in 2006 there were 98 incidents
Suicides and increasing incidents of fragging shows that its time for Army to introspect and look with its ranks and beyond. If there are domestic problems, there is also the pressure to perform, conflict and the lack of communication - a few factors that trigger such extreme reactions.
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