CRPF recruitment scam and Naxal violence

By-Dr Nutan thakur

With the arrest of the IG of CRPF Pushkar Singh along with the Commandant Yajbinder Singh we come across another recruitment scam in our country. A constable Mukesh Kumar has also been arrested along with these senior officers of the force, considered as among one of the Elite forces in India. Mukesh Kumar's wife Swati has also been arrested, from whose custody a huge amount of cash (nearly 70 lakh rupees), which is certainly much more than can be expected from a Constable having a salary, including all kinds of perks, of not more than twenty to twenty five thousand rupees per month. As per the information received so far, this amount had been taken in lieu of recruitment of Constables for the Anti-Naxal Force in Korba, Madhya Pradesh. A cash of Rs. 23 lakh were recovered from the IG Pushkar Singh's house. This is apart from the various other documents and assets recovered from his different households.
Interestingly it is not the IG and the Commandant but the Constable Mukesh Singh who is being considered as the kingpin of the entire scam. Does it not tell the shameful state of affairs of these so-called elite forces where their IGs are being led and fed by the Constables to do all such dirty tricks of making money by recruiting sub-standard persons after taking money from them. The result of such recruitment is bound to be disastrous. Considering the fact that these Constables were being inducted for the Anti-Naxal forces, one can very well understand why our Para-military forces are proving to be so ineffective not only in curbing the menace of Naxal violence but also in saving their own skins in all the Naxal onslaughts. Only yesterday 11 persons have been killed which includes two CRPF personnel in a landmine blast by Naxals in the Dantewada district in Chattisgarh. We have the greatest sympathy for the poor CRPF personnel, the other policemen as also the innocent citizen who get killed in these different Naxal attacks but have the least regard for the senior police officers who go on to recruit substandard police personnel to earn some extra money, never for once thinking about the security of the country, the effectiveness of these people and the adverse impact such inductions are going to make in the police force ion the days to come.
Even more shameful is the conduct of S S Gill, the DGP of CRPF who till now was apparently quite oblivious of these developments till the time, CBI, an outside agency came to know of these events and got these people arrested before the CRPF could even wink. Now that these officers have been arrested Gill comes up with the classic statement of goofiness when he says that the matter is being looked into and attempts are being made to bring about the required amendments in the recruitment process to check such repetitions in the future.