BSF training snipers in Indore school to take on border infiltrators

NEW DELHI: The Border Security Force is training its elite snipers at the Central School of Weapons and Tactics, Indore, to take on the Pakistani marksmen deployed along the international border in Jammu and Kashmir to provide cover to terrorists for infiltration. One sniper will be deployed on every border outpost in the areas prone to infiltration and snipping by the Pakistani marksmen. The Indore school holds a boot camp of eight weeks for the personnel to hone their physical and mental capabilities and turn them into lethal killing machines. Sources said the training is so difficult that only one out of 100 becomes the sniper. It involves going empty stomach for an agonising 72 hours of a stretch at a particular position in -40 or 40+ degree Centigrade. The number of trainees has been increased to ensure every sensitive border outpost gets a sniper. A BSF source said 60 marksmen are to be deployed to not only take down the terrorists trying to infiltrate into J&K but also target the Pakistani snipers who gave them protection cover by firing at the BSF posts. They will follow the rule of one-bullet-one-target of sniping. The urgency for having enough snipers came from the killing of two BSF men early this month by he Pakistani snipers across the border in Pargwal sector (Akhnoor) of Jammu and Kashmir. In the Indian intelligence estimate, the Pakistani Army has deployed some 150 snipers across the border that is protected by the BSF as well as at the Line of Control covered by the Indian Army.–From Our Bureau