Mussoorie: A newly commissioned combat officer in ITBP flanked by her IAF serving husband and Army uniform-donning brother, a third generation officer to don the khaki after his grandfather and father and a third who just made his IPS officer wife proud by getting the stars on his uniform. This was the scene during the customary photo shoot that took place after the passing out parade of 45 trainee officers of the India-China LAC guarding Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) force held on Wednesday at its officers' training academy in Uttarakhand's Mussoorie town.
Out of the 45, 22 officers are direct entry officers in the general duty cadre while the rest belong to the medical, veterinary and judicial cadre who completed their training after undertaking the mandatory combat course before getting inducted into the armed border guarding force.
These officers will join the about 90,000 personnel strong force in the rank of Assistant Commandant (AC) equivalent to the rank of assistant superintendent of police.
After they tossed their caps in the air to announce to the world their commissioning into the combat ranks, there were at least five stories that stood out, either for carrying forward the legacy of their families in joining the uniformed forces or for sharing their 'life in uniform' with their better halves.
Newly appointed AC Sheril Singh had her Indian Air Force (IAF) serving husband, Flt Lt Robin Singh, and brother Maj Mohit Dahiya, a commando of the Army's PARA special forces, in attendance to make her special day memorable.
Standing close to them for a photo-op was newly inducted Assistant Commandant Rakesh Arigala with his wife who is already his senior in the Indian Police Service (IPS) from the AGMUT cadre, Sandhya Swami.
Officer Harjeet Singh was on 'cloud nine' as his father Sajjan Singh, a serving sub-inspector in ITBP and his maternal grandfather sub-inspector (retired from ITBP) Mohan Singh were in attendance to see him march into professional life with a crisp salute to the chief guest of the event, ITBP director general (DG) Anish Dayal Singh, who flew down from Delhi for the event.
Veena Devi's eyes welled up with pride as her younger son Milan Kumar passed out from the hallowed portals of the force as an officer (AC) in the veterinary cadre. Her elder son Ankush Kumar has been serving in the ITBP after he similarly passed out a few years back and is currently serving as a deputy commandant in the veterinary cadre.
The joy was unlimited for ITBP assistant sub-inspector (ASI) Bishan Ram who exchanged a crisp salute with his daughter Bhagirathi who joined his force as an officer in the veterinary cadre. These officers were given a year-long training in various disciplines like military and police tactics, weapon handling, intelligence processing, field engineering, map reading, law and human rights and they will now be posted to various formations of the force including at border posts, a senior ITBP officer said. —PTI