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Namrata Biji Ahuja
Namrata Biji Ahuja

NAXAL ATTACKS

Action against officers not a solution, says ex-CRPF DG

anti-naxal-force-reuters Representative image | Reuters

As successive Naxal attacks in Chattisgarh claim more than two dozen lives in last two months prompting the Union home ministry to seek a report from the CRPF on the Sukma attack cases, former CRPF DG K. Durga Prasad speaks to THE WEEK cautioning against trying to fix responsibility on officers or errant commandants saying that is not the solution.

In the past, the killing of 76 CRPF personnel in Dantewada in Chattisgarh in 2010 had prompted the government to launch an inquiry where officers were removed and lapses were made public.

Prasad, who retired from the force on February 28—days before the attacks took place in Sukma on March 12 and April 24—hopes the government will find real and long term solutions this time.

Why do you think areas like Sukma and Dantewada in Chattisgarh are witnessing successive hits by Naxals?

What is happening in these areas is tremendous amount of work in terms of building of roads and infrastructure. Earlier, it was only operations but now we are also doing road protection work duties. In areas like Sarkeguda, buses have already started plying and the villagers are getting a chance to move out. So, wherever some follow up development action is being carried out by the government, the Naxals are hitting hard. They do not want to lose control .

Don't you think it is taking very long for these road projects to get completed? What is the solution?

In 2016, we completed 250 km road construction in Bastar area. We plan to do double the work this year. The government needs to re-calibrate its approach. It should not undertake long tendering processes and needs to invest in high end technology. Even if we have to spend more in these areas, it is worth it—we will be saving lives in the bargain. So we can nominate those companies who are ready to work in these highly interior areas.

Every time a Naxal attack takes place, we talk of the greyhound model of Andhra Pradesh or improving training of the CRPF personnel. What is your advice?

See, even within Andhra Pradesh, there were three different regions of what we call today—North Telangana, South Telangana and the Andhra-Odisha border. All the three regions have different terrain and different road network as well as different enemy. When I was training my men, I had to adopt three different approaches. Some of my men had to develop the ability to sustain in a jungle without food for three days, others for seven days and so on. So, if I trained some for three days and put them up for seven days in an operation, he was bound to face problems. Same is the case in weapon training and enemy tactics. Therefor, we need to focus on training our men for different operations in different areas and deploy them accordingly. So an Andhra model may not be same for Chattisgarh. For example, in an operation in Chattisgarh, even a time lag of 3/4 hours will be used by the Maoists to swell up their strength and will use human shields which is not the case in Andhra Pradesh.

But there seems to be a wide gap between the developmental work and the anti-Naxal operations being conducted. What is the way forward?

We must focus on building developmental hubs near every security camp where there are provisions for clean drinking water, sanitation facilities, a civil supply depot and so on where people can come everyday for their supplies and work. This will be a great platform for interaction between the locals and the security personnel. And over a period of time, they develop the mama/ kaka relationship. So it is not the military solution we should look at when we set up security camps; the development hubs should follow. It was only because of the great human network built between the local police and the people that we were able to rid Andhra Pradesh of the Naxal problem.

The government launches an inquiry after every Naxal attack. The CRPF has once again been asked to submit its inquiry report. What are the lessons to be learnt for the forces?

I am not saying we should not take action. But axing an officer or anyone for that matter is not the action. Action is finding out what went wrong and where were the lapses so that it does not happen in future. We need to identify what happened at each level.

During my stint in the CRPF, it was the person on the field who took the decisions. At the directorate level, we would only list out any precautions or bring to his notice any points that we felt he must pay attention to when he was going for an operation. But the ultimate command and control was with the commander.

Then if anything went wrong , the only thing I would look into was whether it was a bonafide mistake or malafide. So if it's a malafide intent, then there are procedures for it. But if it was a bonafide mistake , I would take him out and put him for training. Because then it clearly meant he needed some training to hone his skills on that particular front and go back into the operation. But simply sacking and axing officers or commandants only spoils the morale and the confidence. And so does micro managing the forces.

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Topics : #naxals | #Maoists

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