By IANS
New Delhi : The Indian armed forces witnessed a staggering 86 cases of suicides and fratricides in the first eight months of 2007, with most of these attributed to stress and lack of peer support, parliament was informed Monday.
Seventy suicides occurred in the Indian Army till Aug 5, 11 in the Indian Air Force (IAF) and one in the Indian Navy, Defence Minister A.K. Antony said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
In addition, the army witnessed two cases of fratricide with soldiers shooting dead their seniors.
Giving figures for the previous years, he said the armed forces had witnessed 146 suicides in 2006. Of these, 120 were in the army, 24 in the air force and two in the navy.
In 2005, 120 armed forces personnel had committed suicide – 92 in the army, 23 in the air force and five in the navy.
One hundred and eighteen personnel committed suicide in 2004 – 100 in the army, 13 in the air force and five in the navy.
Thirteen fratricides occurred during 2006 – all of them in the army. Seven such incidents occurred in 2005 – six in the army and one in the air force. There were six fratricides in 2004 – five in the army and one in the air force.
Based on a report of the Defence Institute of Psychological Research (DIPR), the government had initiated a series of measures to manage stress and check such incidents, the minister said.
The steps included better man management and prompt attendance of grievances at the unit level and improved accessibility of leaders and frequent interaction of junior leaders with the soldiers.
This apart, 206 junior commissioned officers (JCOs) and 209 non-commissioned officers (NCOs) have been trained and deployed as psychological counsellors, while training capsules on relaxation techniques including Yoga and Pranayam have also been introduced, Antony said.
“The leave policy has been liberalised permitting splitting of annual leave and casual leave (so that) troops will now be able to go to their home towns on leave thrice a year instead of twice a year earlier,” he pointed out.
According to Antony, all state chief ministers “have been requested to make the civil administration more responsive to the problems of serving soldiers and their families”.