Jagdalpur: When Union Home Minister Amit Shah declared India Naxal-free on March 30, he credited the jawans and the police personnel for achieving the feat.
While addressing the Parliament on March 30, he said the the jawans of Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), District Reserve Guard (DRG) and Chhattisgarh Police “have broken the fort of the Naxalites with inhuman patience and courage.”
In the Bastar region of Chhattisgarh, around 5,000 DRG jawans have been the first line of defence against Naxals over the last 15 years. DRG comprised jawans from Chhattisgarh’s indigenous tribes as well as surrendered Naxal cadres. It was deployed across seven districts affected by Left-Wing Extremism (LWE): Kanker, Kondagaon, Bastar, Dantewada, Sukma, Bijapur and Narayanpur.
With India now declared Naxal-free, the question is: what lies ahead for the DRG?
“DRG is still active in the Bastar region and there is no plan to phase out this force. DRG has played a crucial role in eradicating Naxal movements in Chhattisgarh,” Shalabh Kumar Sinha, Superintendent of Police, Bastar told ThePrint.
Sinha said that DRG jawans have now been asked to recover Naxal dumps, where they had hidden stockpiles of weapons, ammunition, guns and their daily use items. Security forces have started a search operation across the Bastar region to discover these Naxal dumps.
“We are trying to recover all weapons dumped by Maoists earlier. In Bijapur, Sukma and Narayanpur, there are still dumps of weapons,” said Sinha. He added that DRG is still patrolling the areas and monitoring the naxals, who surrendered and went back to their villages.
DRG was established in 2011, and raised to its current form in 2015 to tackle LWE in Chhattisgarh. A substantial number of people in DRF are local youth, who are familiar with the terrain inside the state’s deep jungles.
“Predominantly deployed in home districts, the DRG jawans have proven to be the government’s most accurate eyes and ears on the ground,” Arun Dev Gautam, Director General of Police (DGP) told ThePrint earlier.
Search operation across Bastar
In the last few months, security forces have recovered multiple hidden Naxal dumps.
On 28 July, the DRG and the Border Security Force (BSF), during a joint operation in the Koylibeda area of Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district, recovered weapons, ammunition, grenades, grenade launchers and other explosives from a Naxal dump.
These items were recovered when security forces initiated a search operation in the dense forest area of Kanker.
During the operation, the Bomb Detection Squad (BDS) was also present and successfully defused a BGL cell, detonator, and explosives on the spot, destroying them safely.
Similarly, in Narayanpur, 297 live cartridges have been recovered during intense search operations by DRG and the 53rd Battalion of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).
During one such operation in May, along the Kanker-Narayanpur border, four security personnel including a police inspector were killed while defusing explosives recovered from a Naxal dump.
Sinha explained that these weapons are either factory made or country made.
“We are tallying data from across Maoist-affected districts about weapons that Maoists looted earlier,” said Sinha, adding that recovering all the dumps which are still in large number deep inside the dense forests, is the biggest security challenge.
(Edited by: Aakriti Handa)