Govt sends 2,000 SSB men for Naxal ops in Prez ruled Jharkhand

New Delhi: Around 2,000 personnel of Sashastra Seema Bal have now been deployed by the Centre for anti-Naxal operations in Jharkhand.

"The Centre, through the Union Home Ministry, has decided to step up operations and usher development works in the state which is under President`s rule at present," security sources said. The about 2,000 personnel, constituting two SSB battalions, will be deployed at Ranchi and Jamshedpur and will supplement the efforts of the CRPF and the state police who are already involved in the same task, they said. The battalions have been trained by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in jungle warfare and counter-IED skills and techniques apart from undergoing rigorous drills in their own centres. Jharkhand already has about 16 CRPF battalions and the Centre wants to develop and clear more areas like the Saranda forests in order to bring in the state machinery and wipe off the effects of Maoist violence. The SSB, which is designated to guard the Indo-Nepal and Indo-Bhutan borders, used to be a part of anti-Maoist operations till October of 2011 when they were withdrawn from Chhattisgarh, where they used to guard Salwa Judum workers. The force will be the fourth central paramilitary one after CRPF, BSF and Indo-Tibetan Border Police to be a part of this task in a full-fledged manner. The two newly deployed battalions will be under the operational command of the SSB frontier headquarter based in Patna. With this induction, the total number of personnel committed by the central government for anti-Maoist operations has risen to more than one lakh. Each battalion comprises around 1,000 personnel. The CRPF has deployed about 82 battalions, BSF 11 battalions (five in Chhattisgarh and six in Odisha) and ITBP has deputed six battalions for such operations in various Naxal violence-hit states of the country. PTI