NEW DELHI: To gather intelligence against Naxal operatives, CRPF has begun training its troops in dialects, customs and traditions practised by tribals and locals in Jharkhand.
Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is the lead anti-Naxal operations force in the country and has deployed 20 battalions (about 20,000 troops) in the tribal-dominated state to conduct armed operations against the Left Wing Extremists (LWE) or Maoists.
In first of this kind of initiative, the force has decided to impart basic knowledge about the 'way of life' of tribals to at least 1,200 troops as part of a capsule course which also includes a special visit to weekly fairs and cultural programmes of the local area.
It is proposed to initially train about 60 personnel in each battalion in understanding and speaking local dialects of the state like 'ho', 'santhali', 'nagpuri', 'kurukh', 'sadri', 'bhojpuri' and few others apart from learning the customs and traditions of the tribals.
This personnel will further train more men in their units and this will go a long way in establishing a friendly and trust bond between security forces and locals. If the experiment in Jharkhand goes well, the forces will soon implement the same in other states hit by LWE violence like Chhattisgarh, Odisha and parts of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh.