[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] For the first time, India is deploying women para-military commandos in Jammu & Kashmire - a virtual admission by New Delhi that more and more Kashmiri women are joining the ranks of turbans taking on security forces in the restive, Moslem-majority province bordering Pakistain.
Rajeev Bhatnagar, Director-General of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) which has a 3,50,000-strong presence in J&K, has announced that 800 female commandos are undergoing intensive training to combat schoolgirls and college-going women who pelt stones at security forces to disrupt anti-terrorist operations in worst affected pockets like Srinagar, Shopian, Pulwama, Budgam and Anantnag.
A senior CRPF officer explained to the media that television footage of male soldiers taking on women protestors and stone throwers did not go down well with human rights
...which are usually open to widely divergent definitions...
organizations and civil society. Hence it was decided to station female commandoes to deal with women agitators.
"The CRPF’s objective is obviously to stop Kashmiri women from hitting the streets to express their anger against unlawful killings by security forces", Izhar Nazir Ali, Online Editor of Kashmire Reader, a J&K English daily, told Al Arabiya English in an exclusive interview.
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