There is no end to the blunders that the central reservepolice force (CRPF) commits in its anti-Maoists operations. Less than sevenmonths after its men went berserk and killed 19 people in Chhattisgarh’sBijapur district, most of whom turned out to be innocent villagers, it hasagain landed itself in a mess. This time in Jharkhand’s Latehar district.
The facts of this encounter make a chilling reading. A localCRPF commander leads more than 300 personnel (two companies of CRPF and onecompany of Jaguar, a force specifically trained and raised for anti-Maoistoperations by the Jharkhand government) to an area-domination exercise inLatehar’s Katiya forests in December. The exercise goes uneventful for over amonth and then they get wind of a contingent of the Maoists and decide tolaunch a direct attack on January 7. While most of the security personnel movetowards a village, Amwatikar, a small group climbs up a nearby hill to providethem a security cover. While this band is climbing up the hill, the Maoistswaiting for it at the top of the hill unleashes a volley of fire, killing 10 jawans(nine from CRPF and one from Jaguars).
The first mistake is committed here. Commonsense, if not thesecurity drill, would dictate that an operation is launched only after gettingspecific intelligence ¬“ about the location, number of the ultras and arms andammunitions with them. At least a scout or an advance party could have beensent to the village and the hill to find a vantage point before launching afull-scale operation. An ambush, in that event, would have been less damaging.As CRPF’s chief of operations, PK Singh (Inspector General), admits there wasonly a “general intelligence” of the Maoists’ movement. Just as has been thecase with numerous other such instances.
What happens next is even more bizarre.
The security forces pull back, go to the village the nextday and force the hapless villagers to escort them to search for the bodies. Areport (January 16) in Indian Express quotes villagers as saying that they wereforced at gun point to act as human shield (something CRPF has been accusing theMaoists of doing). They even refuse to let the villagers do the searching ontheir own (without the security forces accompanying them) so as to avoidMaoists’ retribution. When the bodies are finally located, the villagers arecommanded to carry it down. At this point, one of the bodies explodes in theirface, killing four villagers instantly and injuring another. Not one securitypersonnel is injured in this explosion, which would only confirm the villagers’account of being forced into it.
Next mistake happens when, unmindful of this explosion, restof the bodies, and the injured villager, are airlifted, by a chopper, to aRanchi hospital. It is the doctors who discover the source of the explosionwhen they notice the stitches on a security personnel’s body, something thatthe security forces had failed to. The doctors then X-ray the body and find anunusual object inside. A bomb disposal squad is called which pulls out a 2.5 kgIED and defuses it. Mercifully, the bomb had not gone up during its long journeyto the hospital. Had that been the case, a few more lives would have been lost.
But can anyone do anything when the CRPF refuses to applybasic commonsense?
In association with Governance Now
