The Centre on Friday assigned CRPF Director General Sujoy Lal Thaosen with additional charge of the post of the Border Security Force (BSF) DG following the scheduled retirement of incumbent Pankaj Kumar Singh on Saturday (December 31).
Singh, a 1988-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Rajasthan cadre, will complete his 16-month tenure as the BSF chief after he took charge on August 31 last year. CRPF DG Thaosen is Singh's batch mate from the Madhya Pradesh cadre. Thaosen will hold the "additional charge" of BSF DG till the appointment of a regular incumbent or until further orders, whichever is earlier, according to a Union Home Ministry order.
The handing over of the charge between the two officers will be done on Saturday afternoon after Singh reviews a customary farewell parade of the Force and gives away service medals to some BSF personnel at a BSF camp here. Singh's appointment as BSF chief last year had created a history of sorts where a son and father held the top post of the world’s largest border guarding paramilitary force.
His father and retired IPS officer of the 1959-batch, Prakash Singh, also headed the BSF as its DG from June, 1993 to January, 1994.
With a strength of 2.65 lakh personnel, the BSF is tasked to secure over 6,300 km of frontier with Pakistan and Bangladesh besides being engaged in a variety of roles in the internal security theatre like anti-Naxal duties.
