CRPF IN ITS 17th Anniversary ..
CRPF was now winning the confidence of people to allay their fears regarding naxals.Posing as “messiahs of tribals, naxals have been a major stumbling block for development,” he observed.
Hitherto, the people, the terrain and their strength had been major strong points for the naxals, but CRPF was overcoming all these factors, he said.CRPF men were now familiar with the people and the terrain, he said.Four companies of CRPF would be imparted commando training for deployment in naxal-affected States such as Jharkhand, Chattishgarh, Bihar and Orissa. CRPF was also in the process of converting its ten battalions into Rapid Action Force (RAF).
The personnel in blue camouflage would handle law and order problems resulting out of communal disharmony.Mr. Gill said that accepting CRPF’s request , the Union Government had sanctioned an exclusive intelligence wing for the force.Stressing the need for such a wing, Mr. Gill said that the agency handling operations should have first-hand information for effective functioning, and delay in transmission of intelligence inputs alone was not the reason for the demand.
Mr. Gill said that border security aspects had been left to the Border Security Force, Indo-Tibetian Border Police (ITBP) and defence forces. The CRPF had taken over the internal security of the country, focusing on anti-terrorism, anti-insurgency and anti-naxalism.The requests for deployment of CRPF personnel had been on the rise, he said and added that 85 per cent of the force was on deployment at any given point of time, thus raising the need for more battalions.
“It was basically because the man-power starved police machineries in the States and the Centre had been consistently writing to the State governments to fill-up the vacancies.”Mr. Gill said that CRPF was embarking on a mission to raise three more battalions including a mahila (female) during the current year, in addition to the 206 existing ones.
