Hyderabad, April 10: An analysis by the top brass of the Chhattisgarh police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in the aftermath of the Dantewada bloodbath has found that the ambushed 62nd company of the CRPF did not even have scouts, who might have espied danger in time.
Scouts are usually a group of four jawans who are sent, alone or in groups of two, 150-200 metres ahead of the company to assess the lay of the land. In the event of an attack, it would be they who would have the first alert.
Sources in the Chhattisgarh police said the practice of having scouts in a company is necessary to avoid casualties. ‘‘Especially in hilly or forest terrain, scouts are an imperative. They scan hillocks, roads and trees and signal the company if there is any danger. We always deploy scouts in our operations,’’ a senior police official who attended a meeting of top officials to analyse the CRPF ambush, told Express.
Andhra Pradesh’s anti-Naxalite force, the Greyhounds, always use scouts whenever they comb forests. “This is a basic tactic of jungle warfare which needs to be followed by all. The latest ambush clearly underlines the importance of scouts,” the official said. He said he found it odd that the CRPF company was moving in a single formation when it was ambushed. The entire movement of the CRPF company was too predictable, sources said.
“The enemy was constantly monitoring their movements, and even the place where the troops halted was totally inappropriate. Though local police were aware of the area domination exercise taken up by the CRPF, they could not sniff the fact that the forces themselves were being watched by the Naxals. Going by the way pressure mines were planted at the ambush spot, we can say that the enemy planned their operation to a T,” the sources said.
In any routine operation, the local police take it “seriously” only when the forces are asked to move 20-25 km deep into the forests. “In this case, they were four-and-a-half-km from the camp. Yet, the senior CRPF officials should have taken all precautions, which they did not,’’ was the view of several officers.
–Agencies