Sonali Mishra To Be First Woman Commander To Head Punjab Frontier Formation

Senior Madhya Pradesh cadre IPS officer and BSF Inspector General Sonali Mishra will replace Punjab cadre IPS officer Mahipal Yadav as the new Inspector General (IG) of the Punjab frontier. She will be the first woman commander to head the BSF formation along the India-Pakistan border in the state.

She is a 1993-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer of the Madhya Pradesh cadre. At present, she is heading the BSF intelligence wing known as the 'G branch' at its headquarters in Delhi. According to the top Union government sources, Yadav will replace Mishra in Delhi. According to sources, Mishra as the new IG of the BSF Punjab frontier will be stationed in Jalandhar. A seasoned officer, Mishra, earlier headed the BSF formation in the Kashmir valley as the IG.

Punjab Border Notorious For Narcotics And Arms Smuggling

Pakistan shares a 553-km border with Punjab and the region is infamous for narcotics and arms smuggling. In fact, the BSF recovered 497kg heroin last year — the highest in the last seven years. The force had recovered 228.56kg heroin in 2019, 230.979kg in 2018 and 279.049kg in 2017.

The BSF Punjab frontier was raised on December 1, 1965. At present about 2.65-lakh BSF personnel are deployed along the 6,300 km of India's land border with Pakistan and Bangladesh. Out of this, the India-Pakistan international border is about 2,290 km and it runs from Jammu to Punjab, Rajasthan and Gujarat on the western flank of the country.

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