BSF chief’s 5-month-younger brother is CRPF head

NEW DELHI - The new chief of the Central Reserve Police Force Vikram Srivastava, while taking over the reins of the country’s biggest paramilitary force Sunday, sought to dismiss the controversy over his intriguing five-month age difference with that of his elder brother and BSF chief Raman Srivastava.

“The matter was duly examined by the competent authority (before his appointment as CRPF director general),” said a smiling Srivastava in response to a query.

According to home ministry records, elder brother Raman was born Oct 24, 1951, while Vikram was born exactly four months and 24 days later, March 18, 1952 — a biological impossibility.

Both Srivastava brothers are 1973 batch IPS officers. Vikram succeeded A.S. Gill as director general of CRPF Sunday after relinquishing the post of Indo-Tibetan Border Police chief.

In his interaction with reporters minutes after assuming office, Srivastava said: “I feel good” about he and his elder brother heading the country’s two largest paramilitary forces.

“It is a rare honour,” said Srivastava.

“Every body has to serve the country in the capacity he is destined for,” he added.

Asked to list out his priorities as CRPF chief, Srivastava said: “The force is deployed on internal security duty at many fronts. But it is facing many challenges successfully and rising to the occasion.”

The new CRPF chief also evaded a direct reply to a query on his stand on Jharkhand government’s diktat to suspend security operations in the state against Maoists.

“I am too new. I will talk about it later,” said the CRPF chief.

On a query as to how he proposes to fight naxal and ULFA menace, he said: “These are matters of operational details, not to be shared with media.”