A soldier armed with two automatic weapons shot dead five of his colleagues early yesterday as they slept before killing himself in restive Indian Kashmir.
The soldier, who was on night duty, walked into the barracks and opened fire at a military camp 20 kilometres north of the region's main city, Srinagar.
Another soldier who was injured told police what happened before being taken to hospital.
Inquiries will try to determine what sparked the incident in Safapora village, including whether the soldier was stressed.
The killer was a member of a counter-insurgency force called the Rashtriya Rifles posted to the heavily militarised Himalayan region and charged with tracking down suspected militants.
Since 1989, Indian forces have been fighting at least a dozen militant groups seeking independence or the merger of the territory with Pakistan. The fighting has left tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, dead.
Several similar incidents have occurred in the past in the region, including one in 2011 when an Indian soldier killed four of his comrades after an altercation in a camp in Anantnag district.