Srinagar: Three army soldiers were reportedly injured, one of them critically, after a soldier opened fire in a barrack with his personal weapon in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Saturday (March 28).Reports said that the incident took place between the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday when the army soldier identified as Pawan Kumar fired multiple gunshots at the fellow soldiers in a barrack using an INSAS rifle.Kumar is believed to be a naik-ranked army official who is posted as a driver in the army’s mechanical transport wing.Reports said that the three personnel who sustained injuries in the shooting were evacuated to a military hospital in Drugmulla of Kupwara for treatment. A soldier who is also posted in the same unit as Kumar suffered gunshot wounds to abdomen and leg. His condition is reported to be critical. Two more soldiers received gunshot and splinter injuries on legs and their condition is reported to be stable.Kumar was reportedly disarmed after being overpowered by other soldiers who were present in the barrack at the time of the shooting. “He has been taken into custody within the unit and is being questioned. An inquiry is likely to be ordered,” reports said.The Srinagar-based defence spokesperson could not be reached for comment. The army’s Chinar Corps has not yet officially issued any statement on the issue.The incidents of the army personnel posted in J&K training their guns at fellow soldiers and officers are not common, though such incidents have been reported from various parts of the Union territory in the past.The Union defence ministry has told the parliament that “stress and personal/financial” along with other similar problems were largely responsible for the cases of shooting, fratricide and death by suicide within the armed forces.According to experts, stress-inducing factors include isolation from home, tough work life and other professional hazards associated with the armed forces.In 2006, the defence ministry constituted an expert group of psychiatrists under the Defence Institute of Psychological Research to suggest remedial measures for preventing such suicide and fratricidal incidents.The Union government informed the parliament in December last year that 438 incidents of suicide and seven fratricides were reported among the personnel of the Central Armed Police Forces, Assam Rifles and National Security Guard over the last three years.Per official data, two incidents of fratricide were reported in 2019 and 2020 each and one in 2021. During 2016, 2017 and 2018, 104, 75 and 80 cases of fratricide were reported in the country’s armed forces.According to one estimate, between 2017 and 2022, more than 800 armed forces’ personnel died by suicide.In December last year, a junior commissioned officer identified as Surjeet Singh was killed in the 157 Territorial Army unit in Samba. The man identified as sepoy Parul Sharma, a resident of Kanal in Bishnah tehsil, was later arrested.In 2023, an army major opened fire at his colleagues in a camp in Dara near Thanamandi of Rajouri district in which at least one officer was injured.In July 2022, a soldier was killed while three others suffered injuries in a shootout in an army camp in Surankote area of Poonch district.