CRPF Team Violated Every Norm in Dantewada: Report

Available evidence show that the CRPF battalion, whose 76 jawans lost their life in the deadliest Naxal attack in Dantewada, had violated every basic rule of operation and ended up being sitting ducks by not going ahead with its area domination mission as planned, said media reports citing unnamed sources.

Documents made available to the one-member probe led by EN Rammohan into the massacre indicated that the CRPF company stayed put in one single place for a whole day and invited trouble, reports said.

According to reports, the CRPF team accompanied with a head-constable of Chhattisgarh police didn’t start for its mission on April 4 at the time – 1900 hours – mentioned in the log book.

The company started moving in the jungle areas only at 0500 hours next day in spite of instructions not to enter forests during early morning hours, reports said citing sources.

Information in the documents also showed the CRPF company spent the whole day in the same ground where they were attacked in the wee hours of April six, said reports.

Moreover, senior personnel of the CRPF team even called some people, one of then the head of close-by village, and asked for big utensils to ready meals, reports said.

The operational drills strictly require the CRPF and the police personnel not to seek any help from the villagers or locals and to maintain as much secrecy as possible while moving out.

The CRPF team, which didn’t maintain secrecy, not only spent the whole day in the ground and moved to nearly ‘Ashram’, but also instructed the villagers to bring cots and other material, said reports.

The one-member committee had also interviewed the villagers of Mukaram who had corroborated the findings of a quick internal inquiry into the massacre which took place in the wee hours of April six killing 76 of the 82 personnel, reports said.

(Based on media reports)