Indian Army To Deploy Prostitutes As A Women Battalion In Held Kashmir

Report Published in Sept 2009 by Christina Palmer

NEW DELHI, India—The Indian Army is deploying around 200 women prostitutes under the cover of Border Security Force constables in the Indian occupied Kashmir. The new female battalion will be deployed along the Line of Control, the ceasefire line between Pakistan and India, The Daily Mail has learnt through authoritative sources.

According to the sources, the decision on recruiting prostitutes for deployment in the held valley was taken some six months back and Indian Army Chief General Kapoor finally approved it. The Daily Mail has learnt that this decision was taken as a result of discussions and consultancies regarding the alarmingly increasing incidents of suicides and killing colleagues by soldiers of Indian army that are deployed in the Indian occupied Kashmir to fight the Kashmiris.

The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that the factor of rising suicides among Indian soldiers and the random shootouts on colleagues by Indian soldiers in the held valley had become a big problem for the Indian army top brass. When the figures went up earlier this year, the army leadership approached different consultants and analysts. The consultants and analysts reached the conclusion that Indian soldiers deployed in the valley were committing suicides and killing colleagues out of acute frustration and depression. Medical and psychological consultants and analysts were of the view that since majority of the soldiers deployed in the valley were married and were away from their wives for very long periods, they were in the grip of sexual frustrations which ultimately transformed into mental frustration.

These consultants suggested that soldiers posted in Kashmir should be sent back to India on leaves to be with their wives at least once a month.

This came as another dilemma for the Indian Army’s top brass as it was not possible at all to send such a huge number of soldiers on leaves with regular intervals. The Daily Mail’s investigations further reveal that upon this a Major General was sent to Moscow to learn from the best practices of the old Soviet army in a country with a big size.

Mak. Gen. Kumar returned from Moscow with a very interesting solution. Russian military experts told the Indian army that the since the soldiers in the valley were 'women-starved', they should be provided with women to meet their genuine and natural needs.

The Daily Mail’s investigations indicate that at this stage, the Indian Army Chief constituted a committee under the command of Lt. General. Raj Kumar Karwal who currently posted as Director General of a training facility of the Indian army while Major General. Sanjeev Loomba, Brigadier Anil Sharma, Colonel N. K. Khunduri and Colonel Sanjay Rai were members of the committee. The committee finally came up with the solution that since it was not possible to provide street whores directly to the soldier thus professional prostitutes should be recruited with the title of sex workers and than they should be given basic military training and should be posted in Kashmir as soldiers so that the male soldiers can establish relations with them. It was also decided that the recruitment should not be made publicly and that RAW’s help should be sought as RAW maintained a huge network of prostitutes in different cities of India. The Daily Mail’s investigations reveal that RAW completed the assignment successfully and provided a batch of some 300, semi educated prostitutes to the committee after proper medical checkup of every individual. The committee then approached the Army Chief and it was decided that these new recruits should not be made part of mainstream army but should be adjusted in Border Security Force (BSF) and from there their services would be made available to the Northern Command of the army. The project was completed by the end of August when the new recruited batch of 300 completed a basic military training and Army Chief was informed that recruits were ready for deployment in Kashmir.

When contacted by this correspondent, Inspector General of BSF Himmat Singh confirmed that a batch of 178 female soldiers was being sent to Northern Command where they would be deployed along with Indo-Pak border to check the border violations by women, working in the field. Mr. Singh further stated that these women were not fully trained for operational military duties however in the next phase, after further training, they would be given the duties of operational Border security. Mr. Singh refused to admit that these female soldiers were actually prostitutes and were being dispatched to the valley as undercover sex workers. When contacted, Rohit Sharma, a senior defense analyst here in New Delhi, said that the move was a creative step by Indian army leadership as it would boost the medical and mental health of the soldiers.