Female paramilitary CRPF personnel will be seen in action during anti-militancy operations in Kashmir from March, 2023.
The training of the female personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is under way and after four to six weeks of training, they will be posted in different parts of the Valley alongwith their male counterparts.
“We will begin with a minimum number of female personnel and the idea behind this is to make local women feel secure during any cordon and search operation,” Inspector General (IG), CRPF Charu Sinha told DH.
Sinha, who became the first female IPS officer to be appointed as the head of CRPF Srinagar sector in September 2020, said the idea to introduce women personnel of the force was also to respect the sentiment of locals.
“We want to provide stability to people in Kashmir to live a normal life. We also ensure that CRPF jawans enter any house during search operation wearing shoe covers. We don’t want to hurt the sentiments of locals in any way,” she said.
Sinha, a 1996-batch IPS officer of Telangana cadre, who was Inspector General of CRPF, Jammu sector before being transferred to Srinagar, said the training and weaponry of female personnel will be the same as their male counterparts.
“We did an experiment six months back and brought a team of female CRPF personnel who worked here for six months. We found they were very good and hard working. After the success of the pilot project, we decided to go ahead,” she added.
Asked to comment about the prevailing security situation in Kashmir, the IG CRPF said, “The threat of terror attacks is always there and we are taking steps accordingly. The year 2023 is going to be challenging for security forces as the G20 event is scheduled in Kashmir. We have a difficult neighbour (Pakistan) to handle,” she said.
On the ongoing ‘outreach programmes’ of the CRPF in Kashmir, Sinha said, “We want to reach out to those youth who can get misled as the enemy tries to radicalise vulnerable and immature young boys.”
To a question whether the decision of the security agencies to bury the body of slain militants at far-off places has helped in reducing militancy in Kashmir, she said, “It may not help in reducing local recruitment, but definitely it helped in reducing glamorisation of militancy. Funeral processions of the slain terrorists also used to be a law and order problem.”
The IG CRPF further said that in case any civilian feels that he/she is facing harassment at the hands of CRPF jawans anywhere in Kashmir, they can approach the helpline numbers of the force and "appropriate" action will be taken against anyone found violating the SOPs.