New Delhi: The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) Friday deployed an additional 10 companies in the national capital amid ongoing student protests at Jantar Mantar, ThePrint has learnt. These companies have been drawn from four districts in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar division and were airlifted to Delhi from Raipur.
The deployment comes on a day when the second round of talks between the CJP and the Narendra Modi government remained inconclusive. The government had sent two of its ministers—Health Minister J. P. Nadda and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office Jitender Singh to hold talks with CJP representatives Saurav Dass and Ashutosh Ranka.
The latest reinforcements bring the overall deployment in the national capital to 55 companies of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs), with the CRPF accounting for 34 of them, according to sources privy to the deployment details.
Earlier this week, the Ministry of Home Affairs had ordered reinforcements of 30 CAPF companies in Delhi hours after the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)-led ‘Chalo Sansad’ march saw a major crackdown by security forces, including troops from the Delhi Police and the anti-riot wing of the CRPF, the Rapid Action Force (RAF).
Sources in the force said that all troops from these 10 airlifted companies have been deployed in Delhi, and the company commanders have been asked to operate their companies at full capacity.
“Companies have been instructed to operate at full operational strength, equipped with the latest anti-riot equipment, operational-scale arms, ammunition and all prescribed equipment required for law and order duties,” an official privy to the deployment order told ThePrint.
“All personnel would be comprehensively briefed about security precautions, discipline and SOPs to be followed during the deployment, and they have been asked to strictly adhere to the operational guidelines, updated by the force headquarters in October last year,” the official further said.
With the latest deployment, there are 34 companies of the CRPF, 15 of its anti-riot wing, RAF, three companies of the Border Security Force (BSF), two companies of the Sashatra Seema Bal (SSB) and one company of the Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP) in the national capital.
After the second round of CJP-government talks that lasted more than two hours, CJP’s Ranka said that the government had “in principle” accepted two demands—compensation of Rs 1 crore to the families of students who died by suicide in the wake of the NEET-UG 2026 paper leak, and withdrawal of the FIRs lodged in connection with the violence at Monday’s march to Parliament.
On the protesters’ primary demand, the resignation or removal of the Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Ranka said that the ministers sought time till Saturday afternoon.
The CJP and the government have agreed to hold the next round of talks on Saturday in Delhi.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)