Soon, Indian Army to allow women in combat roles
The Indian Army is all set to open up combat positions for women, a gender barrier broken by only a few countries globally.
Army chief general Bipin Rawat said the process to allow women in combat roles, currently an exclusive domain of men, is moving fast and initially women will be recruited for positions in military police.
“I am looking at women coming as jawans. I am going to start it soon. Firstly, we will start with women as military police jawans,” he said.
Currently, women are allowed in a number of select areas in the army, but combat roles are kept off limit for them due to various concerns.
The army chief said he was ready to recruit women as jawans and the matter is being taken up with the government.
“We have started the process,” Gen Rawat told PTI.
The Pakistan Army on Sunday released a video purportedly showing destruction caused to the Indian military posts across the Line of Control.
The 27-second video was released a day after it claimed to have killed five Indian soldiers while retaliating to India’s “unprovoked ceasefire violation” in Tatta Pani sector along the LoC. Pakistan Army spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor posted the video on twitter in the early hours of Sunday.
“Video clip showing destruction of Indian posts on LoC by Pak Army in response to unprovoked Indian firing on innocent citizens,” he said in a brief statement with the video. However, rejecting the claim, defence sources said the video was “false and fabricated”.
The Indian Army has also denied Pakistan’s claim that five Indian soldiers were killed along the Line of Control (LoC) in cross border firing.
This is the second time in two weeks when Pakistan army released such a video.
On May 24, it released a video purportedly showing heavy damage caused to the Indian posts across the LoC, in a tit-fortat action after the Indian Army released a clip of the “punitive fire assaults” on Pakistani positions. On Saturday, Pakistan army’s media wing Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) claimed to have killed five Indian soldiers.
