The Special Frontier Force
the Army. The force is headed by a Major General rank Army officer, who serves as Inspector General of the SFF. Training centre of the SFF is at Chakrata, a hill station at Uttarakhand, its insignia being a Snow Lion. This special force recruits mostly from Tibetan refugees, hundreds of thousands of whom made India their home since the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 and has been in this country since.
The SFF has reportedly been employed in various military operations, including the December 1971 war where it operated in the Chittagong Hill Tracts as also during the Kargil battles in the summer of 1999. However, the SFF (or Vikas Forces) have largely functioned under the shadows, with SFF soldiers owing their dual allegiance to HH Dalai Lama, the flag of Tibet and the flag of India. They are highly skilled mountain warriors and trained to operate behind enemy lines.
Also established in late 1962 was an air component known as the Air Research
Centre (ARC) which was raised by (then) Air Commodore Lal Singh Grewal, later VCAS, initially equipped with US-origin Curtiss C-46 Commandos and a variety of STOL aircraft for operations at very high altitude airstrips in the Himalayas, its main operating base being at Charbatia in Orissa and Sarsawa in UP.
The C-46s have long been replaced by contemporary aircraft types, with many based at Palam Airport, Delhi.