Home Minister bears brunt of anger in CRPF

Despite growing evidence of mounting anger and dissatisfaction in the uniformed forces, the government appears clueless about how to cope with it.

Stern warnings by the Army chief and the Government asking jawans to desist from using social media to vent their feelings do not seem to have impressed them much. Neither has the dismissal of BSF jawan Tej Bahadur Yadav for posting a video on poor ration to jawans at the border cut much ice.

While WhatsApp groups of ex-servicemen are agog with allegations that in Sukma, the Commandant of the CRPF Battalion did not quite lead by example, yet another CRPF jawan Pankaj Mishra has uploaded a video where he is ranting against the political leadership and more specifically against Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

In the video, the jawan, clearly under stress, makes the following points:

• As many as 300 Naxalites, 200 of them women, had attacked the ROP at Sukma
• Under the watch of Rajnath Singh, CRPF jawans are facing stones and kicks in Kashmir and bullets in Chhattisgarh
• These are the same jawans who provide security to leaders with Z Plus security including Amit Shah
• ‘We’ voted for Narendra Modi, not for Rajnath Singh. But ministers like Rajnath Singh are misleading him and not supporting him to take the right decisions
• Jawans are facing this situation because they are not raising their voice. If they don’t raise their voice, they will all meet the same fate
• What is needed to be done in Chhattisgarh is to deploy 25-30 battalions and task them to go on the offensive

The jawan was disappointed and bitter about security experts pontificating on TV about poor training of CRPF jawans and intelligence failure. He blames the Chhattisgarh Government for deploying CRPF to provide cover for laying roads and other projects. And he invites the media to visit ground zero and speak to the jawans themselves for learning what’s wrong.

Meanwhile, a team of Home Ministry officials have reported that the 45,000-odd para-military personnel deployed in Bastar are a demoralised lot; they have been there for five years and they are both tired and stressed.

This year, official sources told PTI, 32 Naxalites have been killed in Chhattisgarh while 38 CRPF personnel have lost their lives.

The Observer Research Foundation estimated the strength of armed Naxalites at around 9,000 with access to 6,500 firearms.