Ravi Krishnan Khajuria

Tribune News Service

Jammu, April 7

At its recruitment rallies in the state, the Army has been relying on different stages of verification and character certificate to check youth with separatist sentiment, or shady past, from donning the olive green.While the Army’s recruitment rallies have been evoking overwhelming response from youths of the state, in recent times there have been instances of some BSF personnel (serving and retired) spying for Pakistan in the state.However, the response to such rallies could be gauged from the fact that 42,868 candidates had registered themselves for one a rally that started at Samba on April 2.The Delhi Police Crime Branch, in November last year, had arrested a BSF head constable and a Rajouri-based resident on charges of leaking sensitive information to Pakistani spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).However, a Defence official said, “There is an in-built mechanism in the Army to monitor every single recruit. Instead of being apprehensive, we should appreciate the state-centric recruitment rallies.”While the Army has plans to conduct two more recruitment rallies in Bandipora and Anantnag in Kashmir region, Deputy Director General Recruiting (Punjab and J&K) Brigadier JS Samyal had said at Samba that candidates proceed to the final stage of selection only after proper verification.“Candidates have to go through different stages of verification and are required to submit a character certificate from the police. Hence, there are no possibilities of such incidents,” Brigadier Samyal had said. The Army has been conducting these recruitment rallies across the state to ameliorate socio-economic condition of unemployed youth of the state.