SUV’s have been a part of the Indian army for as long as one can remember. While Maruti Suzuki’s Gypsy has had the pleasure of being the army’s favourite SUV for quite some time now, a recent development confirmed the fact that the Gypsy would be eventually replaced by either the Mahindra Scorpio or the Tata Safari, based on which company wins the tender.
While we wait for that to happen, the Indo-Tibet Border Police Force (ITBP) have recently purchased four SUVs to transport troops around the Indo-China border. Two units each of the Ford Endeavour and the Toyota Fortuner were recently acquired by the force. The said models have also been modified to accommodate 6 to 7 troops with their firearms as well as the radio communication equipment.
In what is reported to be the first ever high-end SUV purchase for any border guarding force or army formation, the four SUVs, said to be sporting a shade of white, will now be deployed at the high altitude region of Burtse and Dungti in the Ladakh sector as well as Menchuka in Arunachal Pradesh, both of them standing at a height of 13,000 feet and 6,000 feet respectively.
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Reports suggest that the high end vehicles, as per a directive, will be used only for operational task to avoid its misuse. The added 4×4 feature of these high powered vehicles will help in the swift movement in the mountainous terrains. It is believed that a special batch of drivers was trained at the ITBP training centre located in Chandigarh prior to taking the vehicles to the hilly regions. These SUVs will be guarding the Indo-China border that spans a length of 3,488 km.
With inputs from PTI