HYDERABAD: Back in 2004, when a cook working with the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force (STF) desperately sought leave to attend to urgent domestic work, none in the force had the slightest inkling that the cook was not headed home. Instead, he was on a mission to camp in the hills off Ooty for months together to gather intelligence on the movements of sandalwood smuggler Veerappan.
In the normal course, a cook rarely gets access to the STF chief. But this man was actually one of the key intelligence men then STF chief K Vijay Kumar had recruited. The request for leave was just a cover so that none except the boss would know that he was on a special mission.
Duly, the STF succeded in luring the elusive Veerappan into taking an ambulance that belonged to STF driven by an undercover trooper who drove the smuggler straight into the hands of the law.
“Don’t let the right hand know what the left is up to,’’ says Vijay Kumar, now director of the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy (SVPNPA) in an exclusive interview with Express. ‘’During operations, everything has to be kept strictly on a need-to-know basis.’’
Vijay Kumar has now been drafted for another key operation, to head the CRPF as it battles the Maoists in jungle terrain in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. As director-general of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), which post he will take up on Oct.6, Vijay Kumar has the task of raising the chins of a demoralised force.
Vijay Kumar’s exploits in Operation Cocoon against Veerappan can now look forward to hearing the story straight from the horse’s mouth. His book is in the writing. ‘’I have drafted about 1,000 pages and the Veerappan episode will form the centrepiece. But I have to cut it down to about 250-300 pages. Why have it too long?’’ he says.
Recalling his days chasing Veerappan, the 1975 batch IPS officer says intelligence was the key to nabbing the bandit. ‘’If the information was disappointing, I used to smile. When the information was valuable, I used to control my inner feelings and never get excited. My colleagues could never make up their minds as to what was going on in my mind,’’ he says.
At the SVNPA, Vijay Kumar started a Special Tactical Wing in which officers are taught techniques of jungle warfare: correct methods of moving in the jungles and survival techniques. The director feels that only officers well-versed in jungle warfare can understand the difficulties of fighting in tough terrain. ‘’The officer has to be simple, just like a jawan. Only then can he be a good leader. Merely giving instructions from the office does not work. We train officers to get a feel of the complexity of jungle warfare. Our officers are taken to the jungles and made to learn the art of stealth. It is 80 per cent practical and 20 per cent theory.’’
Human rights violations are always a sore point with officers fighting an insurrection. Vijay Kumar says only that wherever he has worked, genuine human rights groups always understood his point of view.
So how does he see his next assignment against the Maoists, always difficult from a human rights perspective? Vijay Kumar feels that Maoist operations are the most complex. ‘’There is jungle cover and the fieldcraft is similar. It depends on who spots whom first.’’
He says that present-day policing is getting complex with each passing day. ‘’Issues that can trigger problems have increased. Every situation has potential for friction these days. Twenty years from now, policing will be even tougher and officers will have to become tech-savvy. Street struggle, cyber crime and environmental crime will be on the rise,’’ he says.
Asked to comment on the general feeling among IPS officers that poor leadership in the forces is making policing worse, Vijay Kumar retorts that there is no dearth of good leadership. “There are enough officers who are good leaders. At the SVPNPA, we are training them to become good leaders, those who can lead operations from the front.’’
On a personal front, Vijay Kumar’s day starts at 5 am. His mornings are for reading. ‘’I like reading good books and I choose the author very carefully, be it management, law or fiction. Presently, I’m re-reading Montgomery’s memoirs. After books, it is yoga and exercise.’’