The Central Reserve Police Force has decided to raise a special CoBRA battalion for counter-terrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir, 17 years after this jungle warfare unit was raised in the paramilitary to undertake operations in Naxal-affected states.
CRPF Director General (DG) Gyanendra Pratap Singh announced this during the 86th Raising Day event of the force held in this historic Madhya Pradesh town which is the ‘birthplace’ of about 3.25 lakh strong world’s largest paramilitary force.
The DG said the force was in the process of raising a new Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) for Jammu and Kashmir, as directed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
Shah officiated as the chief guest of the event.
According to the CRPF chief, the futuristic unit will be used to enhance operational activities of the force in the Union Territory.
A senior officer said that the CoBRA unit will be tasked to undertake operations in the forested areas of Jammu and Kashmir including in the Jammu region where a number of terrorist incidents have taken place in the recent past.
In 2023, some CoBRA companies were sent to the Kashmir valley for training purposes but they were not deployed for any action.
At present, regular CRPF units and its special commando unit called ‘Kashmir valley quick action team (QAT)’ undertake counter-terrorist operations there.
CoBRA was raised in 2008-09, a time when Left Wing Extremism (LWE) was at its peak in multiple Indian states and insurgency in certain states of the Northeast was continuing. By 2011, 10 CoBRA battalions were raised and the numbers continue till now.
The J-K unit will be the 11th CoBRA battalion.
The commandos inducted in this unit are trained to undertake specific intelligence-based jungle warfare and guerilla tactics operations.
The commando unit is provided with modern assault weapons, communication and surveillance gadgets and its profile is kept agile with the induction of young troops and commanders, a continuous challenge for the CRPF as it does not get as many lower-age officers.
As of now, most of the CoBRA units are operating in the LWE affected areas of Chhattisgarh apart from some other such states to meet the Union government’s deadline of eradicating the Maoist menace from the country by March next year.
The special jungle warfare unit was raised under IPS officer K Durga Prasad who was a CRPF inspector general at that time.
The 1981-batch Telangana cadre officer used his experience of serving with the ‘Greyhounds’ police commando unit of undivided Andhra Pradesh that was raised specifically to counter Naxalites in that state.
Prasad, who served as the director of the Special Protection Group (SPG), retired from the post of CRPF DG in 2017.
As per official records, CRPF’s first battalion was raised in Neemuch on July 27, 1939 as the Crown Representative’s Police (CRP) under the British rule.
Post Independence, in 1949, it was re-christened as the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) under the Indian Union by first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. (Agencies)
