The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which has started preparing itself to replace the Rashtriya Rifles in J&K as part of the latter’s drawdown plan, is considering forming a company of “young blood” for each unit in the region, sources have told News18.
Special DG J&K Zone has given a message to all formations, according to which, all personnel should be fit and below 40 years of age, the company should have 100-135 soldiers in each unit, News18 has learnt.
All concerned units were asked to reply with details by February 24.
According to the sources, the reason behind the move was that the CRPF was questioned about the old age factor of ground commanders while discussing and planning to implement drawdown of Rashtriya Rifles. “If Rashtriya Rifles, which has comparatively young soldiers, gets moved out, how will CRPF fill the space?” a senior official aware about the development told News18.
The sources also said RR wanted to first hand over security duties instead of operational areas to the CRPF as various incidents have taken place in J&K in January. The RR has also objected to the timing of the proposal of their pulling out of the region, claiming it was too early, sources said.
Meanwhile, CRPF has offered to shift a few number of “young blood” CoBRA commandos, capable enough to handle any situation in any terrain. The team was raised to deal with Naxals but now the situation is better in Left-Wing Extremist states, sources said.
Following the Abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, J&K will also see unprecedented structural changes in the deployment of security forces, including the reduction of Indian Army troops as well in various areas.
The proposal of the drawdown plan of Rashtriya Rifles has been reviewed by the government and a phase-wise exit plan is also on the cards, which will take over six years to complete.
But the officials are expecting that the withdrawal will happen in a phased manner, in which, some troops will be pulled out by next year as part of the downsizing of the RR force in the region.
The CRPF will now have a bigger role to play in J&K as it will have the operational control after the proposal is implemented.
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