LokVox
ENहिंदी
Subscribe
Saturday, 24 October
Sensex73,123.83−0.17%
Nifty 5022,600.00−0.39%
₹ / $94.93+0.12
Repo rate5.50%+0.25 on 7 Oct
Markets: 23 Oct close
The people’s newsroom

PolicyInternal security

ITBP turns 65 as outgoing chief bets on drones and commandos on the China border

Days before he retires, Director General Shatrujeet Singh Kapur has set out plans for a Shaurya commando battalion, a mountain fighting force and strike training across the force by 2027.

From the editorial desk · New DelhiPublished
Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel on duty in the mountains (file photo)
Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel on duty in the mountains (file photo)Photo: Biswarup Ganguly / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

Key points

  1. The Indo-Tibetan Border Police marks its 65th Raising Day on Saturday.
  2. Its chief says drone platoons have been raised in all border units.
  3. Strike training is to cover the whole force by the end of 2027.

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police, which guards the frontier with China, marks its 65th Raising Day on Saturday with its outgoing chief pressing for a force built around drones and commandos.

Director General Shatrujeet Singh Kapur, who retires on 31 October, set out his plans to personnel at the force’s base in Alwar, Rajasthan, on Thursday. The same speech made headlines for his remark that face-offs with Chinese troops were continuing at several places in Arunachal Pradesh.

Kapur acknowledged that China had invested heavily in the People’s Liberation Army and its conventional strength, but argued that drones could even the odds. He pointed to the Russia-Ukraine war and to Iran as examples of how drones were changing the way wars are fought.

The plans

Drone platoons have already been raised in all of the ITBP’s border units, he said, and the force has started a new “Strike” course to prepare troops for close-quarter clashes of the kind seen at Galwan in 2020.

He spoke of a push for drone and counter-drone technology, a full battalion of “Shaurya” commandos and a specialised high-altitude mountain fighting force, separate from the Army. Strike training is to reach the whole force by the end of 2027, and underground infrastructure along the front line is to be strengthened.

“In the past few days, a situation arose where a face-off happened at several locations in Arunachal, and it continues,” Kapur said, a remark the Ministry of External Affairs addressed on Friday, saying the border is disturbed from time to time when Chinese forces deviate from established patrol patterns.