India is holding training for 500 women who will be deployed to guard the country's border with China. The all-female squad underwent 44 weeks of training in battle craft and mountain survival.
Their final training is acclimatization, and then the women guards - with the rank of constable - would be assigned along a 3,488-kilometer area known as the Sino-India Line of Actual Control (LAC), reports the Times of India. They will be spread in 20 locations, where the height is between 8,000 and 14,000 feet, beginning in March.
One of the 20 stations where the "mahila" squad would be sent is the Mana Pass border, the last village on India's side in Uttarakhand. They would be divided into four battalions, deployed to check Chinese aggression at the LAC, reports Indianexpress.
Krishna Chaudhary, director general of the Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP), after a parade, challenged the women border guards to use the best skills they learned during their training. "You will be further trained in field training and high-altitude acclimatization before your final deployment. I am sure you will do the country and the force proud," Chaudhary told the trainees after taking the salute at the Basic Training Center at Bhanu.
The 1962 China aggression led to the creation of the ITBP. But more than 50 years after its creation, this is the first time that the force is deploying female guards in areas considered difficult and with harsh climate and extreme mountain terrain. The force is constructing residential and logistical facilities for the women squad.
The ITBP recruited them in February 2015. The 500 who will finish their training come from the Indian states of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Delhi, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir.