Jalandhar: Punjab Frontier of Border
Security Force (BSF) is all set to deploy women constables at
the highly sensitive Indo-Pak Border, as first batch of the
Battalion would be deployed within a week.
"First batch of 178 women constables was recently
passed out and accordingly an initial training was imparted
to them and within a week they will be deployed on Indo-Pak
border", Himmat Singh, Inspector General (IG) of BSF told
reporters in Jalandhar.
Initially the women staff would be deployed for
frisking of women villagers who cross the fence for going to
their fields and later on after required training they would
be deployed for guarding the border along with their male
colleagues, IG said adding that total 595 women constables
were selected for training and after their pass out, all of
them would be deployed on Indo-Pak border.
Many a times the villagers of border areas raised
their objection on frisking of their women folk by male staff
of BSF and deployment of women staff would overcome villagers`
objection as well, IG added.
Asked whether the women constables would add to the
glory of Beating Retreat parade on Wagha Border, IG ruled
out the same and so far nothing has been decided in this
regard.
IG revealed that shifting of fence in the Ferozepur
and Abohar sector start soon, survey and land acquisition
process of which has already been completed. "There were
large chunk of land (about 23 KMs) was available on Indian
side and accordingly decision of shifting of the fence was
decided after thorough survey", he added.
IG admitted that there were large number of attempts
were noticed to smuggle fake currency through Indo-Pak border
and even several such attempts were thwarted by the vigilant
border guarding force by seizing fake currency of Rs 20 lakh
last year followed by of Rs 55 lakh in the current year so
far.
"Thermal imagers and Night Vision Devices (NVDs)
were proved boon for thwarting the attempts of smuggling from
the neighbouring country", IG said adding that recently it was
noticed that even the smugglers have started using NVDs,
which has become a cause of worry.
Claiming that the BSF has achieved success in
intercepting the large scale of narcotics this year as so far
107.5 KG of Heroin was seized as compared to 106 KG in the
previous year, IG said adding that large quality of arms and
ammunition including 16 pistols seized with apprehension of
88 international drug smugglers.
Bureau Report
