2 soldiers killed, 6 critical in sniper training accident
TNN | Apr 5, 2019, 04:45 IST
MHOW: Two soldiers training to be snipers were killed and 12 Armymen injured in an accident at the Army's Bercha field firing range on Thursday. Six of the injured are in critical condition.
Sources say the grass that the snipers were using as cover during the exercise caught fire, possibly due to the summer heat. The soldiers were wearing ghillie suits and two jawans were quickly engulfed in flames. Their comrades rushed to save them and also got burnt. Mhow station commander Brigadier R S Dadwal said details would be released later, and refused to disclose anything. Badgonda police said the bodies of two soldiers - Ranjeet Singh, 27, from Rajasthan, and Akshay Kumar, 25, from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh - were brought to Mhow Civil Hospital for autopsies. The six critically injured soldiers have been flown to the Research & Referral (RR) Hospital in New Delhi and the other six are at Mhow Military Hospital. An officer told TOI on condition of anonymity that snipers were at the range on Thursday.
Two theories are doing the rounds about what happened. The first is that a mortar bomb exploded by accident., causing the casualties. Only a day ago, a 120mm smoke mortar explosion injured four civilian employees of OFB in Itarsi. The other theory is that the sniper trainees were trapped in a grass fire. According to sources in the Army, a section of 14 soldiers was undergoing the sniper course at the Infantry School. The course started three months ago, and would have ended two days later.
The final demo of the course was on Thursday, on the basis of which they would be evaluated and graded.
At about 12.30 pm, when the trainees were taking their shots, they noticed a fire near their firing point. Soldiers Ranjeet and Akshay were the closest to it. Sensing the danger, they rushed to extinguish the flames, but their ghillie suits caught fire. Their course mates saw them in flames, and rushed to help but all of them got caught up in the blaze.
Other soldiers put out the fire but by then Ranjeet and Akshay had been charred to death.
Sources say the grass that the snipers were using as cover during the exercise caught fire, possibly due to the summer heat. The soldiers were wearing ghillie suits and two jawans were quickly engulfed in flames. Their comrades rushed to save them and also got burnt. Mhow station commander Brigadier R S Dadwal said details would be released later, and refused to disclose anything. Badgonda police said the bodies of two soldiers - Ranjeet Singh, 27, from Rajasthan, and Akshay Kumar, 25, from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh - were brought to Mhow Civil Hospital for autopsies. The six critically injured soldiers have been flown to the Research & Referral (RR) Hospital in New Delhi and the other six are at Mhow Military Hospital. An officer told TOI on condition of anonymity that snipers were at the range on Thursday.
Two theories are doing the rounds about what happened. The first is that a mortar bomb exploded by accident., causing the casualties. Only a day ago, a 120mm smoke mortar explosion injured four civilian employees of OFB in Itarsi. The other theory is that the sniper trainees were trapped in a grass fire. According to sources in the Army, a section of 14 soldiers was undergoing the sniper course at the Infantry School. The course started three months ago, and would have ended two days later.
The final demo of the course was on Thursday, on the basis of which they would be evaluated and graded.
At about 12.30 pm, when the trainees were taking their shots, they noticed a fire near their firing point. Soldiers Ranjeet and Akshay were the closest to it. Sensing the danger, they rushed to extinguish the flames, but their ghillie suits caught fire. Their course mates saw them in flames, and rushed to help but all of them got caught up in the blaze.
Other soldiers put out the fire but by then Ranjeet and Akshay had been charred to death.
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