CRPF creates 70 battalions for exclusive CI operations

New Delhi, Sep 11 (PTI) Over a year after the deadly
Dantewada Maoist ambush, the Indian Central Reserve Police
Force (CRPF) has created 70 exclusive battalions for counter
insurgency and naxal operations which will be insulated from
regular law and order duties performed by the force.
Creation of two distinct units -- one for undertaking
operations and the other for performing duties like conduct of
polls, etc. -- within the world's largest paramilitary force
was recommended in the aftermath of the attack in
Chhattisgarh's Dantewada where 75 armed CRPF men and a state
policeman were killed in April last year.
"We have earmarked and created 70 battalions for
counter-insurgency tasks. These battalions will never be used
for other law and order duties and will follow a strict regime
of training, deployment and performing their specific job,"
CRPF Director General K Vijay Kumar told PTI.
One battalion of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF)
has a strength close to 1,000 personnel.
Kumar, a 1975-batch south Indian state Tamil Nadu cadre
IPS officer, was appointed chief of the three-lakh-personnel
force in the aftermath of the Dantewada debacle last year,
with a task to re-organise and resurrect the force which was
low on motivation.
"These battalions will henceforth serve in our main
theatres of operation like anti-naxal, counter-insurgency and
duties in Jammu and Kashmir. Although the men in these units
can join the other law and order battalions after a certain
period of time for de-stressing themselves, the battalions
would never move for any other job," he said.
This is the first time in the history of the 71-year-old
force that it has got two sets of battalions, each mandated
for different jobs.
The (CRPF) is the mainstay for internal security duties
and its personnel are deployed extensively across the country
for duties ranging from conduct of polls, crowd control, VIP
security and other escort duties.
The CRPF chief also said they have begun "rationalising"
regular demands of the forces' deployment for various tasks,
so that a good number of battalions could be kept as 'reserve'
for training, rest and recuperation.
Another 10 battalions of the Combat Battalion for
Resolute Action (CoBRA) have been raised in the force to
undertake specific anti-naxal operations based on intelligence
inputs.
The force has deployed more than 70,000 troops for
anti-naxal operations as it is the lead force for this task in
Maoist affected states.
Kumar had achieved fame when he headed the Special Task
Force (STF) of Tamil Nadu police for a long time and
strategised operations that culminated in the elimination of
the dreaded sandalwood smuggler Veerapan in October 2004.