After some of the Rapid Action Force (RAF) personnel deployed in Srinagar were seen wearing blue helmets and using shields with the UN insignia, the global body took up the issue with both the State government of Jammu and Kashmir and the Centre. The United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP), which has an office in Srinagar, requested the authorities both in the state capital and New Delhi to stop the use of the helmets and shields by the RAF.
Sources in New Delhi on Thursday admitted that some RAF personnel had indeed put on UN-marked helmets and used shields initially after they had been deployed in Kashmir to deal with the recent unrest. “Only a few of them used those helmets and shields. This might have happened as they were deployed on a very short notice. They were flown from New Delhi to Srinagar and pressed into service hurriedly,” said an
official.
He added that the authorities had subsequently advised the RAF officials to ensure that the paramilitary personnel did not use the UN-marked helmets and shields.
The RAF is a wing of the Central Reserve Police Force and is especially meant for dealing with riots, mob-violence and other law and order problems. Two companies of the RAF landed in Kashmir on August 6 last and they had their first flag-march in Srinagar’s Dalgate area on the same day.
It was during the flag march that some of the personnel were seen in blue helmets with UN marks and holding shields carrying the same insignia.
Sources said that some of the RAF troopers sent to Srinagar had possibly been deployed in any UN peacekeeping missions abroad.
Pictures of the RAF flag-march were flashed by the media worldwide and a US-based NGO United Progressives (UP) wrote to the Public Affairs Section of the UN’s Department of Peacekeeping Operations drawing to the global body’s notice what it termed misuse of the gears marked with latter’s insignia.
Paul Barrow, director of UP, posted on the organisation’s website the text of what he claimed to be a letter he had received from Michel Bonnardeaux, Public Affairs Officer at the United Nations. According to the letter, the UNMOGIP had taken up the issue with authorities in India.
“We understand that directions have since been issued by the Indian authorities to prevent the continued use of UN helmets and shields by the RAF,” Bonnardeaux wrote in his purported letter to Barrow.
“The UN blue helmets and other UN equipment are provided to personnel serving in the United Nations operations for the sole purpose of use during service under the blue flag. All UN equipment provided for use in a UN operation ought to be returned to the organisation upon completion of service and under no circumstances, can it be used for other purposes, including by national armies in the conduct of their operations.”