A comment by IGP Kashmir Range on the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has come under fire when he said that “the performance of CRPF is not up to the mark. Is there a simmering rift between J&K Police and the CRPF?
Here, intelligence is generated by Jammu and Kashmir Police and operations are conducted by the Army and Rashtriya Rifles. The Name of CRPF is inserted just like that. This I know. I have been in CRPF”.
Vijay Kumar expressed this during a discussion with the DGP Dilbag Singh who was on a visit to Baramulla and was chairing an operational meeting with all SSP and Commandants of the North Kashmir. He was seeking feedback on the role of CRPF in Kashmir.
The CRPF officers present there have communicated this to their senior officers in the chain of command. Such a remark is seen by the police officials as hurting the fluid coordination between sister forces.
“Such uninformed and uncalled for condemnation from an officer who himself was on deputation to the CRPF until recently — and reportedly still enjoys the perks and privileges of this elite internal security force — is nothing short of blasphemous.
If the IPS officer has any self-respect, he should surrender all the medals he may have earned during his CRPF tenure because he seemingly got them for doing nothing,” wrote Sanjiv Krishna Sood, a retired additional director general of Border Security Force.
He further adds that such comments are an indication of the contempt that the Indian Police Service (IPS) officers have for the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) over which they want to retain their stranglehold in contravention of the Supreme Court of India’s orders.
Last year, the decision came after two months-long standoff between IPS and CAPF. The Supreme Court “granted the status of Group ‘A’ Central Services to RPF which shall not affect (the deputation of) the IPS”.
The IPS officers stood vindicated by this decision when several retired CAPF officers said that they couldn’t rise to the top because IPS would be chosen instead to lead them.
Sood further wrote that the dominance of higher-level posts by IPS officers is a serious compromise on national security because IPS officers are unfamiliar with the ethos and operational philosophy of these forces.
He criticised the mismanagement of the forces when the IPS officers violated the COVID-19 protocol. An IPS officer, Arun Kumar Sharma of Gujarat cadre, was appointed as Additional DG (Medical). Sood claims that he went against the advice of medical experts and reduced the quarantine period from 14 days to five days, resulting in a sudden increase of positive Covid-19 cases and forcing more than a hundred personnel to go into quarantine.
