In a freak incident, Chief of Staff of the Southern Naval Command Rear Admiral Satyendra Singh Jamwal was killed in an accidental gunfire at the small arms firing range of the Navy's missile and gunnery school, INS Dronacharya, near here, on Wednesday. He was 51 and is survived by his wife Geeta, a daughter and a son.
“The Rear Admiral, accompanied by his staff officer, was at Dronacharya to see the progress of training of the second batch of Sagar Prahari Bal that began on Monday. Today [Wednesday] was their firing practice and he also wanted to do it. He first fired an INSAS and then changed to [9 mm] pistol. When it misfired twice, he looked at it for the cause, with the muzzle pointing at him. It then went off suddenly and the bullet hit his head. He was rushed to a nearby private hospital where he was declared dead,” said Commodore M.R. Ajayakumar, Commanding Officer, INS Venduruthy, and Naval Officer in-Charge, Kerala.
A high-level naval committee would probe the incident and submit its findings in 10 days, he told journalists.
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The police have registered a case of unnatural death.
Commodore Ajayakumar said Jamwal, an active sportsperson, was an ‘ideal' choice to be the Chief of Staff of a training command.
Rear Admiral Jamwal was commissioned in the Executive Branch of the Navy as Surface Warfare Officer on July 1, 1980.
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He specialised in Anti-Submarine Warfare. He was an alumnus of the Lawrence School, Sanawar; the National Defence Academy; the Grechko Naval War College in the erstwhile USSR; the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington; and the Army War College in Mhow.