NEW DELHI: It was literally a baptism by fire for the young women BSF personnel deployed at the international border (IB) in J&K’s Akhnoor sector during Operation Sindoor. Led by Assistant Commandant Neha Bhandari who joined the force barely three years ago but seized the “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity to engage the enemy forces in active combat – arguably becoming the first woman officer to do so since the Army is yet to utilise its women personnel for such roles – half a dozen women BSF personnel fiercely defended two forward posts in Akhnoor with sustained and heavy retaliatory fire on the Pakistani posts in adjoining Sialkot for three days and three nights. The women ‘Seema Praharis’ stopped only when the extensive damage caused by their flat trajectory/area weapons forced the enemy to step back and abandon their forward locations.Of the six BSF women guarding the forward posts under AC Bhandari’s command, four had joined as recently in 2023, while two others had nearly 17 years of service. Manjit Kour and Malkit Kour from Punjab were the experienced hands holding fort at the two forward posts – super-compact structures comprising an observation post and bunker – but for Swapna Rath and Shampa Basak from West Bengal, Sumi Xess from Jharkhand and Jyoti Banian from Odisha, the opportunity to put their weapons training and mental resilience to test in a near war-like situation, had presented itself within a couple of years of joining. And there was no way that they or their commanding officer Neha – both of whose parents had served CRPF, her mother still in service – were letting it go.The male seniors, mindful of the challenge, did offer the women an option to withdraw from active combat duties as Operation Sindoor unfolded and triggered heavy firing and shelling from Pakistan on Indian positions along the IB/LoC. “I obviously declined. When we had trained as soldiers, our training regimen and resources were the same as our male counterparts. Operation Sindoor presented us with a rare, early-career opportunity to prove that we are equally capable as men to take on the enemy,” Neha told TOI.“Once we insisted on staying put, our seniors motivated us to give our best,” she said. BSF DIG, Sunderbani sector Varindar Dutta, to whom Neha reports, said she rose to the occasion, commanding not only BSF troops but also the Army reinforcements that came in. “She independently took decisions on weapons and artillery to be deployed; this is the first instance of a woman officer commanding in an active combat; even the Army is still utilising women personnel for non-combat roles.
