New Delhi: The CRPF top boss Thursday said he has asked his
troops deployed in anti-Naxal operations to even go to the extent of
"violating" the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) if such a
diversion in rules is required for operational efficiency and safety of the
men.
Dismissing suggestions that there was a contravention of set
SOPs by his personnel during the March 11 Naxal ambush in Chhattiagarh's Sukma
which killed 11 CRPF men and four others, CRPF Director General Dilip Trivedi told
PTI that the incident will not deter the paramilitary, and the paramilitary
force will be more "steadfast" in deploying their operational tactics
in beating the Naxals.
"The top brass of the force cannot take away the
initiative of the field commander. The commander on ground has to deploy his
hunch and instinct while he is out in an operational area. I have told them
that you can even violate the SOPs, provided that is in the interest of the
operations and safety of troops," Trivedi said, a day after he returned to
the national capital after touring the ambush area in south Bastar's Tongpal
for an on-spot assessment.
He said the SOPs, in an operational area, are meant to be
flexible keeping in mind the emerging and immediate threat and dynamic activity
on the ground.
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) chief said the force
headquarters has issued some fresh directives to commanders while operating in
the Naxal affected areas.
"I will not go into the details of our operational
tactics but yes we have told our men and officers that we should break the
monotonous drills while rendering routine duties like that of road opening and
frequently visiting an area.
"We have told them to keep flexibility in their
operations so that their movement remains unknown till the last moment,"
the DG said.
Terming the latest ambush a "planned attack" by
close to 200 Naxals, Trivedi said the Naxals used an assortment of looted
police weapons like LMGs and SLRs to inflict causalities on the 45-personnel
strong joint forces squad which was out early morning on Tuesday in one the
most notorious Maoist violence affected areas of the state, which is in the
'Jeeram Ghati' area.
This is the same place where the ultras had killed the top
leadership of state Congress last year in May.
Source: zeenews india 13/03/2014
SOPs are not fundamental rules. These simply guideline and can be deviated according to local conditions and situations.Local commanders are always at liberty to act on demands of the situation implement his changes for success of ops.
ReplyDeleteSOPs are meant for better result taking care of constitutional and human rights.
ReplyDeleteit does not mean that this is hard and fast to follow.
if field cdr thinks there can be better one than he should go with it.