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New Delhi's home minister P Chidambaram has ordered his officials to launch an official complaint with Pakistan's High Commission after a Pakistani newspaper reported an investigation alleging that 178 female members of its Border Security Force had been deployed to "meet the natural needs" of its male soldiers on the Line of Control between the two armies in disputed Jammu and Kashmir.
According to the report in the Pakistan Daily Mail earlier this month, New Delhi had "deployed 200 prostitutes" according to its "authoritative sources". It claimed the decision had been taken by senior Army officers who feared a number of troop suicides and incidents where soldiers had killed their own comrades was linked to loneliness and the absence of female company.
In their search for a response they had contacted a number of consultants and analysts who said the soldiers had acted in "acute frustration and depression". They had recommended increased home leave for married soldiers, but could compromise on security by allowing too many to take leave.
The newspaper claimed a major-general was sent to Moscow to research how the Russians had dealt with a similar problem in Afghanistan in the 1980s. "The Russian consultants told the Indian Army that the since the soldiers in the valley were [starved of women], they should be provided with women to meet their genuine and natural needs."
A high-level committee of senior army officers was formed to explore how they could recruit prostitutes and give them basic military training. The newspaper claimed India's intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing was drafted in to screen the prostitutes because, it said, it already had a "network of prostitutes in different cities of India".
The report which was published on the day the female unit was deployed in Kashmir has been dismissed as a propaganda ploy by Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, the ISI, to demoralise Indian troops.
"It is clearly a story written under a pseudonym, planted by the ISI to demoralise the new women-only contingent. Psychological warfare is not new for the Pakistanis," said a home ministry official.
Jagir Singh, deputy inspector general of the Border Security Force said the claims were an "insult to Indian women".
"These women are aged 19-25 and most of them are from small towns and villages of Punjab. You can imagine the demoralising effect it can have on them," he said.
Damn! Indian Members will get intestinal ulcers from this thread!
Surely I've said so the same many times over. Only keep it relevant to this forum. I prefer to criticize my own country men for each and every wrong step they may take.Okay. Accepted. But then don't delete every anti Pakistan Times of India article that someone posts just because it's from the TOI.
You actually believe that we would recruit prostitutes in the guise of a female battalion?
Is that not the fact? I heard Indian soldiers were committing suicides and Russian friends suggested you to offer your soldiers meat. By the way, I haven't heard of any suicide incident ever since. If India hasn't inducted sex workers, what other measure has it taken to prevent those suicidal deaths?
Is that not the fact? I heard Indian soldiers were committing suicides and Russian friends suggested
Just wait a bit i will be back for you all
Its really funny th way Indians cry & complain when they get hurt
Bunch of drama queens here who can't comprehend the tenets of freedom of speech.
This thread stays. Only administrative action I will take now is to shift it to the Kashmir forum.
freedom of speech cuts both ways.
One article in one Pakistani newspaper quoting absolute nobodies...who happen to know more about the Indian army than most here in India does call for some skepticism from most having a scientific school of thought....don't let your patriotism cloud your vision and influence your right to freedom of speech.
The Indians have made a rational point...how can this one Pakistani report be so precise as to know the names and quote directly from the horse's mouth when there are no similar reports from any of the Indian dailies?
or is this an unprecedented journalistic achievement by the Dawn that'd dwarf all the espionage ever to have been undertaken by the ISI?
all that the 'Indians' are doing is asking for the validity of this news report that seriously maligns the professionalism of the Indian army.
Indian army finds inflatable answer to low morale
THE Indian Army is fitting some of its toughest frontline troops with inflatable penile implants in a bid to boost army morale.
Impotency is becoming a serious concern for the country's élite soldiers stationed in the disputed mountain territory of Jammu and Kashmir. Many of India's special forces are reporting "marriage problems" when they return from their tours of duty.
Doctors at the army's Research and Referral Hospital in Delhi say that the combination of high altitude living and constant stress and exposure to trauma is sapping the sex drive of the soldiers.
Col P. Madhusudhanan, an army urologist at the hospital, says that while many sufferers can be treated successfully with a combination of drugs and psychotherapy, some do require surgical intervention. "For those who don't respond to treatment we now offer an inflatable implant which is inserted into the penis, but we see this very much as a last resort," he said.
It is easy to see why. Not only is the surgery expensive (about £3,500 per implant), the procedure involves sewing a bladder inside the patient's scrotal sac and a small pipe into his penis - the device is operated by squeezing the bladder to pump liquid into the pipe, thus creating an erection.
An earlier procedure involving the insertion of a "semi-rigid rod" had to be abandoned when army doctors found that troops were being left with permanent erections.
The hospital has fitted 12 soldiers with the collapsible penile implant, but Col Madhusudhanan admits that getting proud, battle-hardened troops to admit that they are underperforming in the bedroom has been fraught with difficulty.
"Of course there is some hesitation," said the urologist. "But to a doctor they talk quite openly. With us there is no problem about discussing their medical problem."
However, in the macho world of the Indian Army, wives are not invited to take part in the pre-surgical consultations. "Generally we don't speak to the partners," said Col Madhusudhanan. "We leave that to the soldiers."
While impotency is not uncommon in the Indian Army, doctors say that soldiers serving in the mountains of Jammu and Kashmir are particularly vulnerable because of altitude problems combined with stress.
According to Martin Wilkins, a professor of pharmacology at Hammersmith Hospital, in London, people living at high altitude produce the enzyme phosphodiesterase which restricts blood flow to the penis, causing it to droop. Phosphodiesterase also restricts the ability of the lungs to absorb oxygen, a common complaint among mountaineers. Soldiers patrolling the Line of Control between Indian Kashmir and Pakistan are often described as fighting on the world's highest battlefield "an extreme alpine environment of glaciers, ravines and snow-capped mountains rising to 21,000ft above sea level".
India and Pakistan have been locked in a bitter dispute over the control of Kashmir since the Partition of India in 1947. Although the Indian Army is reluctant to reveal any operational details of its deployment in Kashmir, Pakistan claims that India could have as many as 700,000 troops stationed in the disputed province.
George Fernandes, the Indian defence minister, can only hope that altitude-induced impotency is not spreading along the front line in Kashmir. Otherwise he might be looking at an unforseen - and perhaps embarrassing - blow to India's already massive defence budget.
Indian army finds inflatable answer to low morale - Telegraph