Toward this end, the Union Cabinet has taken an important decision to recall Border Security Force Director General Nitin Agarwal to his home state of Kerala on the grounds of premature transfer. This decision has been preceded by inflating infiltration threats across the line in the Jammu sector that is patrolled by the BSF.
The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet appointed the Special Director General of the BSF, Yogesh Khurana, to the rank of Director General of Police of Odisha state. AGAIN, an IPS Officer of the 1990 batch, Khurania, was given the charge of the top cop in the state, replacing Arun Sarangi.
Senior changes in the BSF leadership are understood by the security threats the force faces along the international border in Jammu and Kashmir and areas of the LoC.
Khurania witnessed the security situation on his two-day visit to the Jammu frontier. Subsequently, he presided over a meeting with the senior officials of the BSF to debate the cross-border infiltration more broadly.
Nitin Ravi Agarwal, another Kerala cadre IPS officer of the 1989 batch, assumed the office of the new BSF Director General on 15 June 2022, replacing Pankaj Kumar Singh, who retired on 31st December 2022. However, in the meantime, the post was lying vacant, and the CRPF Director General, Sujoy Lal Thaosen, was handling the BSF, too.
Besides, the government has also mentioned that BSF has a vacancy issue at large. As of 1 July 2023, around 10,145 posts are lying empty. Of these, 387 are for GOs in group ‘A’; 1816 are for SOs in Group ‘B’ and 7942 are for ORs in group ‘C’.
The recent leadership change in BSF and the continuous vacancy issues prove that the government is active in tackling security threats along the nation’s borders, especially in Jammu, where the threat of cross-border infiltration is still prominent.
