Yoga acts as a perfect stress buster for security personnel

Agartala, Jan. 22: Constable Bisram Singh of the 133 battalion of the CRPF could take it no longer.

Consigned to a cramped existence in a camp in rebel-infested Jagbandhu Para area under Gandacherra subdivision, he had been looking for long leave to be with his family in Uttar Pradesh.

When the leave failed to materialise, Bisram’s frayed nerves finally gave way and he took up his SLR and sprayed three of his colleagues with bullets before ending his life on October 8, 2007. With such incidents of fragging on the rise, stress management drills interspersed with lectures to jawans have gained momentum.

When Baba Ramdev came to Agartala in 2007, the BSF took him to the battalion headquarters at Gokul Nagar for a session of lecture and demonstration. But the cycle of suicides and killing of colleagues in the security forces continued in Tripura almost at regular intervals.

Empowered by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, Assam Rifles jawans gangraped 10 tribal women in May 1988.

Then DIG, Assam Rifles, Brig. A.K. Mathur, had the matter investigated and meted out punishment to the six guilty jawans, including a junior commissioned officer, but the verdict still remains a secret.

In May 2004, a sentry, Gurbux Singh, in the Assam Rifles camp in the Killa area under South Tripura’s Udaipur subdivision fell to bullets while his colleague Ramesh Chandra sustained injuries. Initially the NLFT was blamed, but it was found to be a case of personal enmity.

An Assam Rifles major here claimed that in Tripura incidents of suicide or fragging had always been the least among all other paramilitary forces.

“We organise regular programmes on stress management. We always take a compassionate view while sanctioning leave to our jawans,” he said.

On March 6, 2005 Sudhir Paul, a CRPF sentry, killed his colleague Manik Mia, near Damcherra in North Tripura for being late.

The BSF here has also initiated stress management measures.