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| Bangladesh | |
| BDR reform plan unveiled | |
| 2009-05-20 | |
| The committee on restructuring the embattled BDR Tuesday submitted its partial report to the coordination body with a set of recommendations, including ten possible names and mottoes for a re-born border force. Commerce Minister Lt Col (retd) Faruk Khan, who heads the coordination committee, told reporters that they would submit the recommendations to the government after scrutiny. He said a new name of the mutiny-mauled Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) would be selected from the proposed ten. He, however, did not disclose the proposals on the nomenclature. The border security force started off in 1795 as Ramgarh Local Battalion with the task of suppressing insurgents in that area which it accomplished. It established the first camp at Peelkhana in 1799. It was later reorganized and renamed as Frontier Guards in 1861. The force was further renamed Bengal Military Police in 1891. The force was further reorganized under the name of Eastern Frontier Rifles in 1920. After partition of India in 1947, it was reformed as East Pakistan Rifles (EPR), which emerged as BDR after Bangladesh's independence from the Pakistani rule in 1971.
Faruk Khan also said that the committee recommended two separate sets of uniform-one for official purpose and a separate one for use during guarding the border. "There are five different designs of uniforms proposed by the committee," he said. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |