Cash rewards to fight rebels

Police have announced cash rewards for villagers if they come forward with information regarding Maoists and help security forces thwart any subversive design of rebels in the run-up to the general elections.

Jharkhand additional director-general of police (ADG), special branch, Rezi Dungdung, in his letter sent yesterday to superintendent of police (SP) Jitendra Singh, said cooperation of rural masses was very important in the fight against Naxalites and thus cash rewards must be given to villagers to encourage them to come forward to help police.

Police sources said an informer would receive a cash reward of Rs 40,000 if his or her tip-off led to seizure of explosives weighing over 11kg. A tip-off about 6-10kg explosives will fetch Rs 25,000 and 5kg will yield Rs 10,000.

Similarly, a villager may earn Rs 10,000-25,000 for providing information about AK-47, AK-57, light machine gun and other automatic weapons.

“In remote areas, every villager knows each other by face. So, the residents can easily spot a new face in the area,” said a senior police officer, adding villagers could easily sniff any Maoist activity in their area.

Moreover, he said, paramilitary personnel were outsiders and they did not have minute knowledge of the topography of these difficult terrains. “So local villagers play a crucial role in anti-rebel operations,” he argued.

Stressing on better relation with the rural masses, the ADG also directed the Bokaro police to ensure informers’ identities were strictly protected.

“Several police informers were killed because police couldn’t protect their identities. As a result, villagers often shy away from passing on any tip-off to police,” said another senior officer.

Speaking to The Telegraph, the Bokaro SP said he had received the ADG’s directive and started working on the mission.

“Villagers will be given cash rewards immediately. We are on this job very seriously,” he said.

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1140404/jsp/jharkhand/story_18153236.jsp#.Uz42S9ySyz4

PARAMILITARY FORCES REAL ROLE MODELS

The circumstances in which security personnel work and protect the lives of people, actually they are the real role models; we are not,” said Gautam Gambhir, skipper of Kolkata Knight Riders. The KKR players were in the CRPF 65th battalion camp, Tulsi Baradera, Mandir Hasaud, located on the outskirts of Raipur. They spent about one and a half hours with the jawans Tuesday afternoon. Besides Gambhir, pacer Brett Lee, all rounder Ryan ten Doeschate, batsman Yusuf Pathan and Manvinder Bisla also visited the camp.

The players also interacted with CRPF men. Gambhir described them as real heroes and said that the hard work the CRPF men were doing leaving their families behind is impossible for any one of us to do. Replying  a question of paramilitary personnel about inspiration and people behind his success, Gambhir said, “I always wanted to do something for my country whether it is through sports or the way you people are doing. My family members also supported me much but I did not have any role model.”

 To another query that how would he face his Delhi friend Virendra Sehwag when they would meet on Wednesday, Gambhir said  there is no one friend in the field as both of us is playing for two opposite sides and we both have to win.

Gambhir was of view that better cricket infrastructure should be created in small cities also to groom cricketing talents. He said that an international standard cricket stadium will definitely bring Raipur to global level.

Earlier CRPF IG (Ops- Chhattisgarh) Zulfiquar Hasan said that there are few similarities between cricketers and CRPF men.

Cricketers, play one-day and five-day test matches and fight to win the matches for the nation, in the similar fashion jawans conduct one day, two-day, three-day, five days operations to protect the nation. In the fag end of the visit, the players also inspected the weapons of CRPF and got themselves acquainted with their usage. Latest weapon like X-95, UBGL, LMG, Autofall, SLR, Carbine, AK-47, Rifle Grenade and 51 mm Mortar grabbed the attention of cricket stars.

At the outset, DIG (Administration) Pradeep Chandra, DIG (Provisioning) D Bhattacharya, DIG CRPF Raipur Range Retired Brigadeir Arun Bali,  DIG Bilaspur Range V K Chouhan Commandant 65th Bn SK Singh, Commandant (Intelligence) R K Singh, Commandant 62 Bn Rajiv Kumar Singh and other senior personnel were also present.

Paramilitary forces are now getting state-of-the-art weapons superior to INSAS and AK series

India’s Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) usually follow the choice of weapon selected by the Indian Army, though this has changed recently with sophisticated and high-tech small arms weapons systems purchased by different organisations. With the INSAS rifles not meeting expectations, paramilitary and police forces have begun importing high-end weapons even before the army has procured them. This has resulted in fragmented purchases of expensive state-of-the-art weapons, which not only require extensive retraining of personnel for their effective usage but are also required to be stored carefully. The National Security Guard (NSG), which is the nodal agency for the procurement of weapons among the CAPFs, has now started acquiring various guns that fit the requirements of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF) and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). 

According to director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), Maj. Gen. Dhruv Katoch (retd), “Equipping of a force is an expensive proposition. Ideally, at any one time, over a 30-year cycle, one-third of the inventory needs to be of the latest variety, one-third should be current and one-third should be under process of phasing out. It would not be possible to equip our police forces such as BSF, CRPF and the state armed police with the latest weapons till such time as the field army are equipped first.” He further emphasises, “It must be understood that the CRPF and BSF are police forces and not paramilitary. The Assam Rifles on the other hand is a paramilitary force, which must be equipped after the army’s requirement has been met. Generally, police forces should be equipped with the weapons, which the field army sheds in the process of modernisation. They will, thus, have the same weapons as the major portion of the army as only one-third of the army will have the latest weapons in the manufacturing cycle.” 

The induction of substantial numbers of state-of-the-art weapons by the paramilitary forces brings with it the attendant challenges of training and maintenance. The new small arms being inducted are technologically far superior to the INSAS and AK series, and to make the best of these expensive weapons, time and effort needs to be invested in training the force. This is confirmed by Maj. Gen. Dhruv Katoch (retd), who says, “There is no shortcut to training. Police forces must have basic training in weapon use to include firing of weapons at regular intervals. Assam Rifles has no problem on this count as they are trained on the lines of the Indian Army. Police must develop appropriate leadership to rectify weaknesses in training. As of now, they are managers and not leaders of men. Police academies need to stress weapon training more rigorously. Simulators need to be used to good effect.” 

By Atul Chandra and Dilip Kumar Mekala in Force India