Jammu and Kashmir government is contemplating to raise a new battalion of tourist police to deal in a "humane way" with the visitors to the state who are growing in number.

"We have less tourist police officers to deal with the visitors and we contemplate to raise a new battalion to deal with the tourists more humanely," Minister for Tourism, Ghulam Ahmad Mir told PTI.

Mir said the department of Tourism has written to Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to either allow direct recruitment by the department or train the regular policemen for the job.

"We have written to the chief minister and the Home Department to either allow us to recruit directly or carve out a battalion from the regular police," he said.

Mir, however, said that the department believes people from fresh recruitment will be better than training the regular police.

Tourism officials say that against the sanctioned 106 posts, the department has a present strength of 72 tourist police officers, including one Superintendent of Police.

"We have around 72 officers posted in the department out of the sanctioned 106 posts. Even 106 is inadequate as new tourism destinations are coming up and the number of visitors is increasing," Director Tourism, Kashmir, Talat Pervez said.

Pervez said the department feels there is a need to have separate enforcements for the regions of Kashmir and Jammu like the separate directorates.

The chief minister has assured the department to look into the issue and "make some arrangements soon", Mir said.

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