Naxal attack in Sukma killing 9 CRPF jawans exposes limitations of security forces
March 13, 2018 was punctuated with more sad news from Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district. Nine CRPF jawans were killed and two others injured as Maoist rebels blew up a mine-protected vehicle (MPV). The vehicle was on administrative duty ferrying troops proceeding on leave. The latest attack comes days after the killing of 10 Naxals by Telangana Police's Greyhounds personnel on the Telangana-Chhattisgarh border.
It is a serious blow to security forces exposing the vulnerability of MPVs from mines itself. It is likely to leave a psychological impact on troops and also hit confidence in Casper vehicles considered as force multiplier during anti-Naxal operations. To execute such a blast, it requires elaborate preparations to set up a mine capable of blowing up an MPV. It cannot be done in a matter of hours. Such mines have been laid over extensively along different roads and remain buried for years only to be activated at available opportunity like this.
The Naxals are known to be studying the routine, habits, practices, movement pattern and timing of security forces and laying ambushes accordingly. The roads and tracks, if not dominated or cleared for mines by the alert road opening parties, provide Naxals with the opportunity they have been looking to strike. The drills and mine detection equipment used by parties usually fail to detect such planted mines. Any vehicular move of security forces done without road clearance can be selected and targeted by the party in waiting. It's not difficult to get an alert for any vehicle bound to cross the site on isolated roads. The wait can be for a few hours in a day or for days together to strike the trigger. It was one such day and time yesterday.
To control the Naxal menace, it is time to employ more elements and resources for different tasks. The limitations of security forces engaged there must be supplemented by other forces as well. To succeed in controlling or containing insurgency, the foremost need is to increase troop density for holding, dominating and undertaking counter operations.
The roads in interior areas, freely exploited so far by the Naxals, must be cleared of suspected mines. The Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) don't have expertise in this field, this must be assigned to engineering regiments of the Army. Once cleared, all tactically important roads must have permanent deployment of forces to ensure day and night domination by physical presence of road opening parties. This will need additional units either from CAPF, Rashtriya Rifles or regular army units in this role. The troops from the present CAPF units supported by specialised forces can focus on carrying out operation against Naxals.
Talking about the threat on security personnel, the Army needs to be playing its supporting role to facilitate the security forces by providing engineering efforts and also in holding areas for domination purpose. Fighting this in isolation will see more setbacks.
It's time policy makers on security consider the need of supporting CAPFs. This problem is no longer specific to a few units of the CAPFs, it is a problem of national security.
Also read: Tackling the Maoists: Why 2018 may be a deciding year