The government will soon acquire unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), available only with the army so far. “The first trial of the UAVs will be held next week at an undisclosed place,” an official said.
Jolted by the Maoist strike at Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, the Centre has decided to provide an aerial route to the paramilitary forces to track down the insurgents and para-drop troops for combat. There is, however, no agreement yet between the home and the defence ministries on using the Indian Air Force (IAF) to strike at the Left insurgents.
The government will soon acquire unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), available only with the army so far. “The first trial of the UAVs will be held next week at an undisclosed place,” an official said.
In another significant development, the home ministry has started bifurcating the CRPF into specialised categories: law and order, and anti-insurgency operations. “It will be a slow process as it involves sensitising 260 battalions of the CRPF. But we have to adopt this approach in view of the challenge posed by the insurgents,” the official said.
Significantly, the official did not rule out the possibility of the insurgents having been trained by ex-army and CPMF personnel. “The intercepts have revealed that the insurgents have been using terminology normally associated with the armed forces. It has raised a suspicion about the chances of ex-servicemen training the Maoists,” he added.
The home ministry has also ordered a high level probe into the Dantewada attack which left 74 CRPF personnel and two police constables dead. Former Border Security Force (BSF) DGP EM Rammohan Rao, an Assam cadre IPS officer, will head the one-man committee that will look into the shortcomings leading to the massacre. He would be submitting his report within 15 days, a senior home ministry official said. The committee has been mandated to reconstruct the actual events that took place at Dantewada before the arrival of the first rescue party. It would also analyse and establish the decision/command structure/ hierarchy which took relevant decisions leading to the incident.
The ministry has ruled out any rethink on the anti-Maoist operations. “In fact a fresh operation has been launched against the Maoists at a place in Chhattisgarh,’’ officials said without disclosing the location.
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