Proud Moment! In a First, ITBP Inducts Two Women Officers In Combat

Of the total 53 officers who passed out from ITBP officers' training academy in Mussoorie, Prakriti and Diksha were inducted in the force and took oath to serve the country.

Mussoorie: For the first time ever, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police force on Sunday inducted two women officers in combat after they completed their training.

Of the total 53 officers who passed out from the ITBP officers' training academy located in Mussoorie, Prakriti and Diksha were inducted in the force and took oath to serve the country at the attestation ceremony. 

ITBP director general S S Deswal and Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami - who was present as Chief Guest at the parade event on Sunday - put the ranks of Assistant Commandant, the entry-level officer rank in the paramilitary, on the shoulders of the two women officers. 

Besides Prakriti and Diksha, 42 officers are in the general duty combat cadre, while 11 are in the engineering cadre of the about 90,000 personnel strong mountain warfare trained force.

These officers will now be posted across ITBP formations in the country, including the LAC with China and the anti-Naxal operations theatre in Chhattisgarh.

It must be noted that until now, ITBP had only combat women in the constabulary ranks. The force started recruiting women combat officers in its cadre from 2016 on the basis of an all-India examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).

Durinng the event, a 680-pages book called 'History of ITBP' was also released by Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami along with ITBP director general S S Deswal. The first-ever book on the India-China LAC guarding force contains many unknown facts and some 1,000 unseen operational photographs of ITBP starting from the period when the Union government was planning to raise it. 

(With news agency PTI inputs)