Even as the Border Security Force dismissed the plea of jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav, saying he had a history of alcoholism and absentism, another jawan, from a different battalion, has come forth with complaints about similar issues.
India Today has accessed a nine-page confidential letter to the Home Ministry by a jawan which complains of the poor conditions in which they live.
The letter indicated that the rules of the Central Armed Police Force are not followed, with jawans doing 20-hour shifts instead of the eight hour mandated on paper.
While India Today did not reveal the identity of the jawan who wrote the letter, it reported that money allocated for food was spent on other activities.
Yadav, who is part of the 29th battalion of Seema Suraksha Bal in Jammu and Kashmir, had used a video to make an appeal to authorities to improve the quality of food served to the jawans. He has said that they would sometimes go to sleep on an empty stomach.
The BSF has been asked to submit a report to Rajnath Singh on Wednesday. And as the top rungs of BSF have tried to downplay this allegation by raising questions about Yadav's conduct during his time in the forces, more reports have indicated pilferage in BSF camps.
A report in The Economic Times quoted a BSF jawan from the Humhuma BSF headquarters in Srinagar as saying, "They sell food items like dal and vegetables to civilians outside the camp at cheaper rates and leave us bereft of the facilities. They even deny us our daily-use items and sell the same to their agents outside the camps."
Another civil contractor told the newspaper that those officers in charge of provisions would even sell petrol at half price.
Meanwhile, Yadav's wife, through his Facebook account, claimed that her husband had been missing since his video went viral. "I haven't spoken to my husband since yesterday evening," she wrote Hindi, "and we have no idea where or how he is doing."
Yadav had on Tuesday alleged that he had been transferred because of the viral video and had been given a plumber's job. He also said that his seniors had pressurised him to removed the video.
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