Contending that there was no specific intelligence about Naxal ambush in Bastar that killed top Chhattisgarh Congress leaders few months back, the national IPS association has urged Chief Minister Raman Singh to reinstate the local SP, suspended after the attack, to keep up the morale of the police officers.
Asserting that the Bastar Superintendent of Police (SP) Mayank Srivastava is a gallant officer who "made a name for himself" in anti-Naxal operations, the association has in a letter to Singh said the 2006-batch Indian Police Service (IPS) officer was not the only one in-charge of security duties in the area and the action against him is "stretching things too far".
27 people, including senior Congress leaders like Mahendra Karma, state PCC chief Nand Kumar Patel and former Union Minister V C Shukla, were killed on May 25 when heavily armed Maoists ambushed their convoy in the Bastar area. The state government later suspended Srivastava and transferred out the local Inspector General of Police and Collector. Srivastava has been attached to the DGP office in Raipur.
"The current instance wherein lapses for the Darbha Ghati incident have been attributed to SP Mayank Srivastava only would certainly be stretching things too far. The VIP arrangements and the large scale anti-Naxal operations in the adjoining areas where being tasked and controlled by the persons other than the SP also. "...There was hardly any specific intelligence available with state or central agencies regarding the presence of naxalites in such a large number at this location," Pankaj Kumar Singh, the secretary of the central association said in his August 8 letter to the Chhattisgarh CM.
The association has a strength of more than 4,000 members at present. "I would, therefore, earnestly request you to immediately reinstate SP Mayank Srivastava so as to restore his confidence in the system and make him feel wanted in this hour of crisis. Such a step, the letter said, will go a long way in instilling faith and belief in the young police officers on Monday and in future also that sincerity, hard work and dedication will be the only benchmarks while dedicating oneself to the service of the society.
Pleading the case of the SP, the association said Srivastava had led from the front and the government also recognised his (Srivastava) acts of bravery and gallant action and awarded him the Police Medal for Gallantry twice in a career spanning barely five years. The association said that keeping up the morale of the police officers and security personnel should be the topmost priority in the face of deadly Maoist attacks in such areas. Chhattisgarh government hasd ordered a judicial probe into this incident.
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