NEW DELHI, Sep 24 (UNI): The Border Security Force (BSF) will soon induct women for its counter-insurgency operations and border guarding.
"We have submitted a proposal for raising all-women battalions in the force," BSF Director General R S Mushahary told UNI here today.
Mushahary, who discussed the proposal with Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil yesterday, said, "the government seeto be in favour of the proposal." "To begin with, we will have only one battalion (1000 personnel) and use it for border guarding," he said, adding that the strength would be increased over a period of time.
The BSF now has a strength of more than 200,000 personnel.
The BSF currently appoints women for operational duties.
They are appointed on compassionate grounds.
The induction of women personnel for border guarding duties has been high on the agenda of the BSF.
But the proposal has taken a shape only now because of the urgent need in the context of use of women demonstrators as a front whenever BSF raiding teavisit a village mainly in pockets of Kashmir and North East.
"The women personnel are proposed to be used not only for border guarding, but also for counter-insurgency operations," BSF sources said.
Asked if the proposed BSF women battalion would assist other central paramilitary forces and the state police in discharging their interal security duties, Mushahary said, "such plans are not on the agenda now." The BSF has also requested the Home Ministry to increase the strength of the BSF by another 20,000 personnel exclusively for effective counter-insurgency and internal security duties, besides keeping a reserve for contingency.
All of its 157 battalion are now deployed along the 7500-odd km long borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Nanavati-Shah panel directs Banerjee Committee to submit its finding AHMEDABAD, Sep 24 (UNI): The Nanavati-Shah Commission, probing the Godhra train carnage and the communal riots that followed in Gujrat, today directed the Justice U C Banerjee Committee, investigating the causes of the fire in Sabarmati Express, to submit "an authorised copy of all documents and evidence of its finding" to the panel within 15 days.
The two-member Commission, comprising retired Justices G T Nanavati and K G Shah, directed the Banerjee Committee to submit a copy of all its findings before October 14.
The Commission's directive came after the argument of advocate Deepak Shukla, who appeared for the applicant, Vishwa Hindu Parishad, that u/s 19 of the Commission of Inquiry Act, any committee formed on the same issue should submit all its findings to the superior investigating body, the Nanavati-Shah Commission in this case.
Earlier, the Committee had submitted a copy of its interim report to the Commission and had stated that it could disclose the evidence to the Commission provided the latter sought it.
Subsequently, the Nanavati-Shah panel had directed the Committee's secretary to furnish before it all materials collected and compiled for its report.
It also asked him to submit a copy of the report, interim or final.
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad had filed an application before the Commission seeking that since the Justice Banerjee had conducted detailed inquiries into how the fire broke out inside the train on February 27,2002, it should inform the Commission of its findings.
The application also stated that as the terof reference of both the Commission and the Committee overlapped, the evidence, collected by the latter would aid the Nanavati-Shah Commission in its investigations.
The Banerjee Committee was appointed by the UPA government in September last year at the instance of Railway Minister Lalu Prasad.
The VHP has contended that its kar sevaks, who were returning from Ayodhya, had been targetted and the Godhra incident was part of a pre-conceived conspiracy.
