Dantewada ambush: CoI against 4 CRPF officials

The Central Reserve Police Force has constituted a Court of Inquiry against three of its officers and a retired inspector general, shunted out of Chhattisgarh following a report on the Dantewada massacre by Naxals, to look into the "specific acts of omission and commission" by them. "The Court of Inquiry will go into the specific roles of the three officers and complete it by June 30," CRPF Director General Vikram Srivastava told PTI.

The CoI will be headed by additional director general at the force headquarters D C Dey and will comprise an IGP and a Commandant rank officer. The four officers in the dock are the then DIG (CRPF) Dantewada, Nalin Prabhat, then Commandant of the 62nd battalion A K Bisht, Inspector Sanjeev Bangre and IG Ramesh Chandra who retired from service on April 30.

On May 21, Prabhat and the two other officers were shunted out of Chhattisgarh for their alleged lapses after government considered the E Rammohan Committee report, which was constituted by Home Minister P Chidambaram to go into the reasons of the Dantewada Naxal attack where 75 CRPF and one state police personnel were killed in an ambush.

After they were shunted out, Prabhat was sent to Chandigarh as DIG, a charge he was already holding, Bisht moved to a training centre at Aradi in Orissa and Bangre was shifted to Anantnag in Kashmir. The removal of Prabhat came as a surprise in the CRPF ranks as he was considered among the best officers in para-military forces and has been decorated with President's Police Medal, Police Medal for Meritorious Service and Police Medal for Gallantry. He was considered as best operational officer during his tenure as DIG in militancy-hit Jammu andKashmir. The CoI has sought records and other documents which were a crucial part of the earlier probe by former BSF DG E N Rammohan.

The inquiry will also go into the order and flow of communication between the Special sector headquarters of the CRPF located at Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and these officers. The Special sector of the CRPF is headed by a Special Director General rank officer who is responsible for anti-Naxal operations undertaken by various Central para-military forces like Central Reserve Police Force, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and Border Security Force and their coordination with different state police forces.