Kashmir: Women stone pelters to be tackled by all-women battalion

New Delhi: An all-women battalion has come into existence after the protest of girls at Lal Chowk in Kashmir on April 24. The battalion will mainly deal with the protesters, a home ministry official informed.

On the reopening of educational institutes after five days in the valley, the students participated in the protest. The protest was demonstrated by numerous student girls.

This will be one of the five IRBs exclusively approved by the central government to cease the persistent violence in violence-prone areas, according to a report by Deccan Chronicle.

The home ministry chose 5,000 women out of 1,40,000 applications for all five IRBs. The main role of its personnel will be to tackle the protesters along with some other duties, one of the officials stated.

In 2015, an amount of Rs 80,000 crores was announced by Narendra Modi for the development of Jammu and Kashmir, which was reiterated today in a meeting, chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Seventy-five percent cost of raising the battalion will be borne by the centre, and the total expenditure is approximately 61 crores. There are 144 battalions in India, four of the IRBs are raised in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh each, and twelve in the Maoist states and five in J&K.

The officials informed that 40 percent applicants are the native of Kashmir and 60 percent will be accommodated from border districts in order to recruit the youth of Kashmir.