Noted Bollywood actor Nana Patekar commented on Tuesday on a recent video posted by a Border Security Force (BSF) jawan, seeking help from the powers that be over the bad quality food served to soldiers serving in often inhospitable forward posts.
According to an article in the Indian Express, Patekar, who is noted for his roles in films such as Prahaar (1991) and the recent Marathi release Natsamrat (2016), expressed his concern over the video's contents and said that such incidents tended to shake the morale of the forces.
Patekar said that he had spoken to the BSF Inspector General.
He told IE:
"I have spoken to Kamal Nayan Choubey sir, who is the second-in-command. Whatever has come out is not right because these forces take care of us more than their kids, be it the Army, BSF, CRPF or ITBP. All our jawans are respected a lot. I can tell you more about the case in two or three days because investigations and inquiry are still on. Such incidents demoralise the spirit of our army, BSF and CRPF jawans."
Earlier this month, Patekar's NAAM Foundation started extending their activities outside Maharashtra and decided to build schools for children of defence personnel killed during action.
Since September 2015, the foundation, established by Patekar and Marathi actor Makrand Anaspure, has been working with families of farmers in Maharashtra who committed suicide because of crop failure and the crippling burden of loans.
Recently, Patekar and Anaspure had announced that NAAM will build schools for the children of army and para-military force personnel in the states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya.
66-year-old Patekar had also visited the border areas in Kashmir in November 2016.
He had said at the time:
"The soldiers, who serve in uniform at the front are our real heroes, they fight a battle everyday to protect the nation's integrity... BSF jawans should be treated on par with Army personnel."
Earlier this week, BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav of the 29 Battalion Seema Suraksha Bal had talked about the "rot in the system" alleging that there was deeply ingrained corruption in the higher orders of BSF, and saying that troops in forward positions were not even getting basic square meals everyday.
(With inputs from PTI)
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