Nine BSF troopers injured in accidental blast

Jaipur, May 30 (IANS) Nine BSF personnel were injured on Tuesday morning when a mortar shell accidentally exploded during a training exercise at a field firing range in Rajasthan, an official said.

The incident took place around 8.30 a.m. at the Kishangarh firing range near the Pakistan border.

"Nine of our troopers were injured when a 51 mm mortar shell exploded after a short fall. Six were first admitted to a hospital in Ramgarh while three joined them later with minor injuries. None of them are critical now," a Border Security Force (BSF) official said.

Earlier, the officials said that six BSF personnel injured in the accidental shell explosion and that two of them were critical.

All the injured - B.R. Babu, 40, G.S. Veeranna, 35, Ram Babu, 27, Bachanboro, 30, Prem Kumar, 30, Ravindra, 39, Suman Viswas, 25, Mithun Mandal, 27, and Manoj Kumar, 36 - were later airlifted to the Army Hospital at Jodhpur in the evening after administering them first aid, the official added.

According to the official, all the injured, of BSF's 112 Battalion, are constables and were on routine mortar firing practice at the firing range when the incident occurred.

A Court of Inquiry has been ordered into the incident, the official said.

This is second such incident occurred at the same firing range, the official said, adding four BSF troopers were injured in similar circumstances at Kishangarh on March 17.

The 2.57 lakh-strong force is deployed in Rajasthan as part of its task to guard the India-Pakistan border.

In a similar accident in January, 2016, two BSF personnel died and three others, including a deputy commandant, were injured when an 81 mm mortar shell accidentally exploded at the same firing range.

On March 24, six BSF personnel were injured in a similar mortar shell blast during firing practice in Jharkhand's Hazaribagh district.

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