The price of 'guarding' the nation.

(From The Statesman (India))

ALOKE TIKKU STATESMAN NEWS SERVICE NEW DELHI, May 31. - Security forces may be ready to kill the enemy and if need be, die for the country but for now, they are tired. Dead tired.

They have been on the job for far too long, guarding the country's international borders, fighting insurgents or just trying to survive in the treacherous mountains at 18,000 feet high and with temperatures dipping to minus 40 degree Celsius. All this and more, without a decent break in between.

The three forces - Border Security Force, Central Reserve Police Force and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police - that make up for 70 per cent of the central police forces - have had an average deployment rate of 96 per cent. Security forces say they have been practically without reserves and the only way to deploy their men in an emergency is to pull them out from somewhere else. "We have had to deploy almost every man we have," said an ITBP officer. And it is beginning to tell on their men.

It is an issue that has been troubling Border Security Force director-general Mr Ajai Raj Sharma too. A high deployment ratio means he has had to send personnel in the 22 reserve battalions of the BSF on field duties, in Jammu and Kashmir or along one of three borders - Indo-Pak, Indo-Bangla and partially, Indo-Myanmar border - where the force is deployed.

There have been instances of his men breaking down under pressure and aiming the gun at their head, rather than the enemy's. Those who resist the deadly temptation can only work at less than their optimum efficiency. Mr Sharma said psychological and the physical strain was bound to affect the operational efficiency of the force.

The situation is the same in ITBP and ...