Fratricide by mentally ill BSF man: Court of Inquiry orders action against five

The four BSF men had been killed by one of their own, a mentally ill policeman whose cries for help had been ignored.

Officer Satteppa Siddappa Kilaragi had been released from the unit’s hospital at 9:30 am, just 15 minutes before he started shooting indiscriminately. Among those he killed was his close colleague, agent Rattan Lal, who had taken care of him and served him breakfast just an hour earlier.

Satteppa himself was hit by a ricocheting bullet and died during treatment.

A BSF Court of Inquiry (CoI) has now recommended departmental action against five officers and men, including the unit’s medical director and deputy commander, for ignoring Satteppa’s condition.

The CoI found that despite Satteppa suffering from multiple mental health problems, including schizophrenia, psychosis, bipolar disorder, anxiety, sleep disorders and epilepsy, as well as diabetes and blood pressure, he received a Form 1 certificate, the certificate of higher health, during medical check-ups.

Despite reporting ill health and being advised to rest, Satteppa was assigned sentry duty between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. the night before the chaos. He was removed from duty only after he returned to report health problems.

Satteppa, perhaps, had been suffering for more than a year. His leave records show that he overstayed his leave almost every time in the past year. Being separated from his family may have hurt him even more, even after he was assigned housing on paper, he didn’t actually get one due to unavailability of housing, and his family had to move back to the city his native Karnataka.

Satteppa’s story captures much of what is wrong with personnel management in the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), where high levels of stress have led to high rates of desertion, suicides and incidents of fratricide. He also highlights the absence of systems within the forces to identify mentally ill personnel and provide them with appropriate professional help.

The CoI report has noted that “there was no system” in the Satteppa unit to monitor treatment or advice given by civilian hospital doctors, unless the patient himself approached the BSF hospital.

In fact, Satteppa’s history of mental illness was revealed only after the incident, when her bag was opened and prescriptions for mental illness from a Dharwad hospital were found.

The sources said the CoI report has also noted that a lack of effective supervision at the lower level and a lack of coordination between key officials in the unit led to Satteppa being assigned night watch duty despite reporting that he was ill and was advised a day of rest and light duties thereafter. . This happened because the hospital did not communicate the notice to the BSF employee on duty, the sources said.

According to the investigation, on the night of March 5, when Satteppa was posted on sentry, he told his colleague that he was not feeling well. This was reported to his superior, Deputy Commander Satish Verma. When Verma inquired after his health, Satteppa spoke at length about his domestic problems. After this, he was sent to the hospital with two assistants.

“The fact that DC thought he needed to be accompanied by two assistants shows that he saw something wrong. However, he did not act properly,” a BSF official said.

At the hospital, despite knowing that a patient had presented with two assistants, the chief medical officer (CMO), Dr. SK Verma, did not even pay a visit and allowed her to be discharged the next day, the CoI discovered.

The CoI has found fault with the CMO and DC, as well as ASI Ram Niwas, Agent Birendra Mishra, and Nursing Assistant Gaji Sheikh for failing to detect Satteppa’s problems, not relating to him properly, not coordinating with each other, and, finally, not providing any help to Satteppa.

There have been up to 25 cases of fratricide in CAPF between 2019 and 2021. In the same period, 428 suicides have been reported in the forces.

The sources said that while the Home Office has issued many instructions to ease stress among the Jawans, including streamlining leave to give them a minimum of 100 days off in a year, the forces have found it difficult to implement them over the land.

“If a unit is short on manpower, there is no way for a company commander to give his men leave. His main duty is to secure the border. In addition, the shortage of manpower makes even the head of the unit overloaded and therefore ignores the health problems of his men. Satteppa did not disclose his mental health treatment to the unit. But he should have been detected,” a BSF official said.

As of March 1, 2022, there were 357 officer grade vacancies and 22,558 junior officer grade vacancies in the BSF.