NEW DELHI, March 11: An Indian police officer shot dead five of his colleagues on Sunday after an argument outside the bank they were guarding, officials said.

Another officer was wounded in the early morning incident, a police spokesman said.

The spokesman said the shooting occurred at the private Dena Bank in the busy commercial district of Daryaganj, part of the crowded Old Delhi part of the city.

Area police chief Alok Kumar said the victims appeared to have been shot at close range. The officer who opened fire has not been found.

“We got a telephone call about the firing in the bank at around 4:50 am and police teams that reached the spot found five personnel of the Sikkim police already dead,” Kumar said.

“The service weapons of the five men had not been used which indicates they were taken by surprise,” a forensic expert said at the bank, where the bodies lay on the blood-splattered floors.

Local residents said they initially thought the bank, widely used by local shops, was being robbed.

“We had just woken up when we heard a rattle of gunfire and commotion inside the Dena Bank and we alerted the police control room, thinking robbers had broken in,” said Dinanth Guleria, a cloth trader.

All six officers belonged to a special taskforce that had been brought in from India's eastern state of Sikkim to guard the bank, India's junior home minister Sriprakash Jaiswal said.

“The shootout appears to be a result of an argument that broke out among the security personnel guarding the Dena Bank,” Jaiswal told Star TV television.

“We are trying to find out if the constable who opened fire was under mental strain,” he said.

Police said they had questioned the injured officer, who had received gunshot injuries on his legs, and had launched a manhunt for the alleged killer.—AFP