Sixteen of 28 officers selected to join the Border Security Force have declined this year, The Indian Express reported on Sunday. This comes amid escalated tension between Indian and Pakistan and a spate of attacks along the country’s borders. Earlier this year, a BSF officer had also uploaded videos alleging that the force did not feed its troops well.

According to the report, 28 candidates were selected to join the BSF after they had taken the Union Public Service Commission examination. Sixteen of them declined to join. They risk not being allowed to ever appear for the paramilitary exams ever again.

The force has 522 vacancies currently, for gazetted officers in the Assistant Commandant post or above. Last year, only 17 of 31 officers who were selected joined the force, while out of those who had taken the exam in 2013, 69 of the 110 selected officers had joined. Fifteen had resigned during training, the report added.

Several candidates told the English daily that their preference had been the Central Industrial Security Force or a civil services job, while some had said they did not join because of the disparity in treatment between the BSF and the Army.

Last week, one BSF soldier and an Army jawan had been killed along the Line of Control. The BSF and Army had strongly protested because the soldiers’ bodies had been mutilated by Pakistani forces. Besides this, the BSF had also sacked Tej Bahadur Yadav, who had shot videos criticising the paramilitary force. The BSF had initiated an inquiry into the case after his videos went viral, but it highlighted that Yadav had faced disciplinary action for multiple reasons in the past, including “alcohol abuse, use of insubordinate language, habitual absenteeism and acting in a manner prejudicial to an official order”.