BSF out from Kashmir, CRPF takes over

Srinagar, Mar 15: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has now taken over all counter-insurgency operation from Border Security Force (BSF) in the entire Kashmir valley.

With the induction of ten more batallions, the CRPF has taken over charge of all Counter Insurgency (CI) operations from BSF in the entire Kashmir valley, DIG CRPF for South Kashmir Nalin Prabhat told reporters after the last BSF batallion moved out today.

He said ten battalions of the CRPF inducted took the charge of Kupwara and Baramulla districts in the north Kashmir and Pulwama and Anantnag districts in the south Kashmir. Six battalions would be deployed in north Kashmir while four in the south.

With this, a total of 59 battalions would be deployed in the valley, which is one-third of the total strength of the CRPF, he said.

He said all the CRPF personnel were given a month-long pre- induction training during which they were delivered lectures on Human Rights.

Mr Prabhat said immediately after their arrival here in January, they were given in-house pre-induction training at different places.

They were briefed about the topography of the area they were being deployed in, besides security in Kashmir, the languages of the local people and climate, he said.

He said during training the CRPF personnel were given lessons on how to deal with the common people during the counter-insurgency operations.

Though there were very few complaints of Human Rights violations against the CRPF, it was decided that no CRPF personnel will be deployed without Human Rights knowledge.

''We take note of every complaint of HR violations and make clear that no violations will be tolerated'' he said.

The DIG said the CRPF will now have its own intelligence network, for which men were being trained.

UNI