A final decision on future deployment of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Maoist-hit areas of the state will be taken by the Centre at end of September, a Maharashtra state Home Department official said here today.
"We have requested Home Minister Rajnath Singh to let us continue using CRPF in Maoist-hit areas and not deploy Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) in their place. He has granted our request for now and said that we will use CRPF until September, after which the central government will take a final call," Additional Chief Secretary (Home) K P Bakshi told PTI.
He said that deployment of ITBP instead of CRPF would mean that Maharashtra has a lesser number of 'companies' patrolling Maoist areas.
"I think the Centre wants us to deploy ITBP in place of CRPF because numbers prove that Maoism is is fairly contained in Maharashtra. This exerts pressure on other states like Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh but our work is to put forward our viewpoint that if CRPF companies are shifted from here, the Maoist menace may get concentrated in Maharashtra," he said.
"One CRPF battalion has six companies. Currently, Maharashtra has five CRPF battalions which means 30 companies. In ITBP's case, one battalion has five companies. So, the number of companies will decrease by five," he said.
Bakshi said that Maharashtra government will be satisfied if the Centre provided five extra ITBP companies to the state.
