The Indo-Tibetan Border Police plans to double its women’s contingent to be deployed along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh and the Northeast, sources in the border guarding force said.

“We have proposed to double the women’s contingent along the sensitive India-China border. At present we have 500 women troops mainly deployed along the LAC in Ladakh and the Northeast,” said a senior ITBP official.

India and China have been locked in a border standoff in eastern Ladakh since May last year. Under the disengagement process that began on February 10, India and China have moved back from their positions on the Pangong Lake’s north and south banks, with the Indian withdrawal taking place entirely across India-claimed territory.

The Chinese army, however, is said to have strengthened its position at Ladakh’s Depsang Plains, where the Chinese are entrenched 18km inside India-claimed lines.

For the first time in 2019, a women’s contingent comprising 500 troops of the ITBP broke the glass ceiling and were deployed in the high-altitude border outposts along the Indo-China border in the treacherous terrain after completing 44 weeks of training in battlecraft and mountain survival. Like their male counterparts, they had undergone gruelling drills and learnt to handle weapons, read maps, gather intelligence and were trained in commando tactics.

Earlier, women in the paramilitary force were deployed for maintaining law and order and VIP duties and were also posted at the cantonments and hospitals.

Sources said the total number of women troops in ITBP was 2,000, mostly constables, head constables, sub-inspectors and inspectors.

“We are now also planning to recruit women officers in the ITBP in supervisory and combat roles. A proposal for recruitment of officers in the rank of commandants and assistant commandants has been sent to the Union home ministry,” said another ITBP official.

The ITBP protects the 3,488km border with China that passes through the five states of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. The Indian Army is behind this first line of defence. On the Chinese side too, the People’s Armed Police, also a paramilitary force, guards the border, while the People’s Liberation Army is stationed behind it.

The 90,000-strong ITBP was introduced on October 24, 1962, specifically to guard the Chinese frontier after the India-China war.