CRPF SUSPENDS ITS SUKMA COMMANDER

NEW DELHI: The CRPF has suspended its commander who led the team that came under attack by Maoists in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma on April 24, leaving 25 personnel dead. While the assistant commandant J Vishwanath has been suspended for alleged “failure of leadership”, the commanding officer of the 74th battalion, commandant Firoze Kuzur, has been shifted out of Chhattisgarh.

The 25 slain men belonged to the ‘Delta’ company of the 74th Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and were deployed in the Maoist hotbed between Burkapal and Chintagufa in Sukma district, one of the worst-hit by ultraLeft violence.

Seeking to set its house in order after 37 troopers were killed in two recent Maoist ambush in Sukma, the force has also transferred at least half-a-dozen commandants and a deputy inspector general (DIG) posted in the Bastar region, and has replaced them with some of some of its best officers serving in other parts of the country. Top CRPF officers told PTI that the suspension of the assistant commandant was ordered following receipt of a preliminary report about shortcomings that might have led to the massacre. Some others, however, described the transfers are “routine”.

Sources indicated disciplinary action could be taken against some more officers on the directions of the Union home ministry, to whom the CRPF recently submitted a report on the ambush.