Director General of the CRPF, AP Maheshwari, on Thursday said the paramilitary is mulling induction of women commandos in specialised anti-Naxal force CoBRA.
The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is the world’s largest paramilitary force and the move to induct women personnel for lead jungle warfare roles will be a morale boosting step for them, officials said, adding the decision is in line with increasing the percentage of women across the Central paramilitary forces.
The Centre had raised a 10,000-strong special anti-Naxalite force under the command and control of the CRPF in 2008 in view of the ascendance of the ultra-Left violence in the affected States to counter the Naxals. Apart from equipping the Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) with sophisticated weapons and gadgets, it was also enabled to counter Naxalite intelligence techniques and strategy.
The CoBRA battalions are deployed in Naxal-hit regions across the country. The specialised Force is headquartered here and has battalion headquarters in every Naxal-hit state, including Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh among others.
“We are favourably considering inducting women in the CoBRA,” Maheshwari said while addressing a Press conference here.
“CoBRA commandos get an incentive of 15 per cent more salary than is normally drawn by a CRPF jawan,” said a CRPF official.
At present most CoBRA battalions are deployed in Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh as these states are worst affected in terms of Naxal violence, the official said.
The CRPF has a history of deploying women personnel in combat roles since 1986 when its first “Mahila” (women) battalion was raised. Presently, there are six battalions (6,000 personnel) of the Mahila Battalion.
The women troops of the Mahila Battalions are not only deployed across the country for rendering law and order duties, anti-Naxal operations and other operational tasks that are rendered by men personnel but have also been assigned to duties in various regions across the globe under the United Nations (UN) flag.
With a strength of about 3.25 lakh personnel, the CRPF is the lead internal security Force for counter-terrorism, anti-Naxal and anti-insurgency Force in the Northeast. The CRPF is also deployed majorly in Jammu and Kashmir for counter terror operations and law and order duties.