Agartala, Jan 29 (IANS): A trooper of the elite Tripura State Rifles (TSR) gunned down two colleagues and shot at three others before fleeing away with his service rifle, police here said Tuesday.

"Following a quarrel, TSR rifleman Bijoy Debbarma, 28, suddenly opened fire killing two of his colleagues on the spot. Three other jawans were also critically injured in the abrupt firing at Chawmanu in northern Tripura Monday night," a police spokesperson told reporters here.

The TSR camp, where the incident occurred, was set up recently to deal with the militants. The spot, 180 km north of here, is close to the India-Bangladesh border.

Senior TSR and police officials rushed to the spot and launched a combing operation to nab the trooper who had fled with a bullet loaded self loading rifle.

All police and Border Security Force posts in the state were put on high alert.

The two men killed were Utpal Datta from West Bengal and U. Laksmanaiya from Andhra Pradesh. The injured troopers are in a critical condition.

In September last year, a rifleman of the TSR kidnapped his senior colleague and a driver at gunpoint before opening indiscriminate fire and later shooting himself with his service weapon. Subsequently, the abducted policeman and the driver were rescued from a jungle in western Tripura.

With 12 strong battalions, Tripura police's most elite unit, TSR, has earned kudos from the prime minister and many state governments besides various central paramilitary forces for stamping out four-and-a-half decades of terrorism.