CRPF carries out vigilance check of 3 personnel in wake of Davinder Singh case

New Delhi, Jan 29: The Central Reserve Police Force has carried out a mega audit of its over three lakh personnel to check for any possible “subversive” elements in the wake of a Jammu and Kashmir Police officer being caught with terrorists recently, the chief of the paramilitary force said here on Tuesday. powered by Rubicon Project CRPF Director General (DG) AP Maheshwari said the incident involving Deputy Superintendent of Police Davinder Singh was “grave” and an “area of extreme concern” for the security forces, adding that all should see that these things don’t occur.

So it was “common sense” to carry out such an audit of its manpower, deployed as the lead force for counter-terrorist and anti-Naxal operations across the country, when any incident like this take place, he said.

“If something happens somewhere, it is a case to revisit ourselves and that is what we have done. We have no doubts about our personnel,” the CRPF chief said. A senior official said the counter-intelligence units of the force were recently asked to check the credentials of the personnel after obtaining data from all available sources and they have been asked to be kept on “active mode” for some more time. “No security grid should be allowed to be weakened by such episodes. So, all forces have to keep an internal watch,” he said on the arrest of DSP Singh.

“All forces should maintain vigilance so that there is no such type of subversion or some sort of intrusion within the force…,” the DG told reporters here. Jammu and Kashmir Police had arrested Singh at Mir Bazar in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district along with Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists Naveed Baba and Altaf, besides a lawyer who was operating as an overground worker for terror outfits, on January 11. Maheshwari said that somebody from a security force trying to collaborate with adversaries is a “serious matter”. However, he added that a lone incident cannot be used to “brand” the entire force which has done onerous work in the past. “An isolated incident should not be taken as branding of any particular force. The JK Police has tremendous contributions in normalising the situation (in Kashmir),” the DG said at a force camp here.