GUWAHATI: Meghalaya’s first elite commando force, Special Force-10, has seen a significant increase in the number of female recruits over the past three years.
An additional strength of 84 women, including two armed branch sub inspectors, will be ready to serve the commando force by next month.
“The 82 female constables and two armed branch sub inspectors are among the 424 recruits currently on the last leg of their specialized commando training in Nagaland. The training is scheduled to be completed by the second week of May,” J.F.K Marak, Commandant, SF-10 told The Shillong Times on Thursday.
Currently, 32 women, comprising four women sub inspectors in the armed branch, seven constables in the commando group and 21 constables (law and order) are serving the elite commando force.
“The number of female recruits has increased considerably, which augurs well for the commando force. Currently, we have a total strength (including men) of 1371 personnel,” Marak said.
The need for a specialised force to deal with counter-insurgency operations, riot and crowd control management during law and order situations had prompted the state to raise the force back in 2014.
The first batch comprising 223 commandos and 115 rangers, passed out in October 2016 while the second batch comprising 152 commandos and 50 rangers, passed out in August 2017.
“As far as manpower is concerned, there is no shortage as such even as we have 423 vacancies at the moment. But we hope to fill them up in due course,” he said.
Insurgency has by and large been on the wane in Meghalaya since the past few years and the augmentation of manpower (with an increasing number of women) in the elite force, augurs well for the state’s security apparatus.