Dilip Trivedi takes over as CRPF chief, says Naxals biggest challenge

New Delhi: CRPF faces its biggest challenge in Naxal areas and will focus on minimising troop casualities as it takes on the Left wing extremists, the new chief of the country’s largest paramilitary said in New Delhi today.

Senior IPS officer Dilip Trivedi today took over as the Director General (DG) of the force which is in the thick of the action against Maoists in various parts of the country.

Trivedi, a 1978-batch IPS officer of Uttar Pradesh cadre, was till now serving as the Special DG of the BSF at its headquarters in New Delhi.

“The biggest challenge for the force is in the Left Wing Extremism theatre and we will aim to minimise the damage on our side while inflicting as much as we can on the Naxals,” Trivedi said after taking over the new assignment.

The new chief, who had experience working in paramilitary forces like BSF and ITBP earlier in his career, said there are other challenges also for the three-lakh strong force like Jammu and Kashmir, North East, variety of duties in the internal security domain and the forthcoming Assembly polls in few states and the general elections.

Trivedi, in his early days in the Indian Police Service, has served in various positions in Uttar Pradesh police and at the Centre as ADG of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police before going to the Border Security Force.

The new DG was given a ceremonial ‘guard of honour’ before he took charge at the CRPF headquarters in the National Capital.

The post of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) DG fell vacant on 31 July after incumbent chief Pranay Sahay retired.

NSG chief Arvind Ranjan was given the additional charge by the Union home ministry.

The CRPF is the mainstay for anti-Maoist operations in the country and is also deployed extensively in the country to render a variety of internal security duties including VIP security.

CRPF so far lost 132 of its personnel in anti-Naxal operations in 2010, 26 in 2011 and 37 last year while hundreds of its personnel were injured.

PTI