Border Security Force constable Tej Bahadur Yadav, who had made a video criticising the force for the conditions in which jawans were made to live in, is back with a new video. Yadav’s fresh clip had begun circulating on social media a few days ago, a BSF official said. In it, he alleges that the BSF confiscated his phone on January 10 and tampered with it to show he has contacts in Pakistan. “Please don’t trust these rumours and believe only when I put out a video,” he said.
The video appears to have been shot when Yadav’s wife had visited him in February, the BSF official said. The Delhi High Court had allowed Sharmila Devi to visit Yadav after she said she had not heard from him and was not sure if he was safe.
In the new video, Yadav appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to support him, and said he was being targeted for his earlier videos that had exposed the BSF’s alleged corruption. “Today, I want to ask the Prime Minister that despite exposing corruption, why am I am being tortured mentally?” He also brought up that his voluntary retirement was cancelled.
However, the BSF has continued to maintain that they have not targeted Yadav in any way, and said they took away his phone as part of the investigation into his claims. In his first video, Yadav had said BSF officials were misusing money meant for soldiers’ food. Regarding his voluntary retirement, a BSF official said, “There is due process of inquiry and his voluntary retirement application cannot be processed now due to pending inquiry against him.”
The BSF has said that Yadav has broken rules by making the new video while on duty, India Today reported. The investigation into his first video is still on, and is likely to be done by the end of March.
In January, the Home Ministry had sought a report on Yadav’s video. The ministry had rejected the BSF’s initial report on Yadav’s allegations and asked the force to submit a new one. The BSF, on its part, had asked its commanders to ensure that constables on duty were not carrying cellphones.
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