Tej Bahadur controversy: BSF has a robust system to redress grievances, says DG

Two months after Tej Bahadur's Facebook post stirred a controversy, the director general (DG) KK Sharma of Border Security Force (BSF) spoke exclusively to MAIL TODAY, disclosing the progress in investigation ordered after the Facebook post went viral.

He said, "the BSF's court of inquiry was in the last stage. The force is yet to submit its final report to Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), however, DG said the final report will be 'submitted by March end'.

Initially, the BSF was given 24 hours to submit the report by the home secretary. But, the BSF had sought more time for the submission. While he refused to divulge the details of the report, he rubbished allegations made by Bahadur's wife stating that the court had dismissed the allegations levelled against the force.

The DG further said, "Constable Tej Bahadur may have gone public with his complaint, especially against his seniors, but he didn't have to do it as the force had a proper system to redress the grievance. We have a robust grievance redressal system."

"Our redressal is on par with the military (army, air force and navy)-from e-grievance redressal system to interactive voice response system. Besides, the 50-year-plus old force has a mechanism to deal with genuine complaints," he said.

"Senior officers including me as Director General of force are available for redressal. We are a two lakh force, so I may not be available always but I listen to my soldiers as much as possible," he further added saying, "We dont need to better the system. It is already good. But we have made innovations. We are coming up with a new indigenous smart phone application."