Infuriated by the abuse and harassment suffered at the hands of his seniors at his work place, a constable attached to the Defence Security Corps (DSC) shot dead two of his senior colleagues and injured two others from a Self loading Rifle (SlR) at the Indian Air Force station at Santa Cruz in north-west Mumbai in the small hours of Tuesday.
Ninety minutes after he reported to duty at 12 midnight, 49-year-old RH Yadav walked into the station’s rest room and fired several rounds at his colleagues — Guard Commander HK Singh (52) and Som Dutt (53), after a verbal duel. Both Singh and Dutt were resting at that time and died on the spot.
“The incident took place at 1.30 am. The accused constable fired around seven rounds from a SlR he was carrying. Two security personnel were killed and two others injured,” senior Inspector Sudhir Jambhavdekar of the Nirmal Nagar police station said.
The two deceased were among the seven DSC personnel present inside the IAF station at Kalina in suburban Santa Cruz, when Yadav flew off the handle and went on a shooting spree.
After shooting at Singh and Dutt, Yadav also fired at two other constables — CB Thapa (46) and Bheem Singh (51), who suffered injuries in their legs. The two injured were later rushed to VN Desai Hospital at Vile Parle. Thapa, Bheem Singh and others present tried unsuccessfully to overpower SlR-wielding Yadav, who managed to flee the station immediately afterwards.
However, Yadav was caught by beat marshals while travelling in an autorickshaw at Goregaon. Jadhav’s arrest came after the police sounded alerts on wireless. He was handed over to the Nirmal Nagar police for further investigations.
Quoting a statement made by the arrested constable, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone VIII) Namdeo Chavan said, “The accused constable has told us that Singh and Somdutt, the two deceased, and Bheem Singh used to abuse and harass him. Jadhav was not good terms with his colleagues and had a tiff with them shortly before he fired at them”.
According to Yadav’s statement, he was put on night duty frequently by Singh, who prepared the duty charts, and was verbally abused and ridiculed by his colleagues.
“If he was sleeping, his colleagues would turn the TV on. They would hurl abuses at him and at times even beat him up if he wanted to turn it off. If he was on normal course scheduled to be on day duty, his schedule was changed to night suddenly, thus angering him. They would report him to the seniors,” the DCP said.