Neemuch(MP): The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has decided to buy around 6,000 motorbikes to mobilise troops engaged in anti-Naxal operations and reduce dependence on jeeps and other four-wheelers, which fall prey to landmines causing casualty to the security forces.
The bikes will be given to every battalion and strike units deployed for anti-Naxal operations, in the next few months, in the worst affected Left Wing Extremism areas of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha.
"The Union Home Ministry has sanctioned purchase of 5,920 motorcycles for deployment in Left Wing Extremism areas.
Security personnel have been asked to totally cut down travel on four-wheelers in these areas as it gives out their movement and large vehicles get easily trapped in land mines which either leads to killing or maiming of troops," a senior official said.
Bikes, the official said, are being used in the Maoist-hit areas by forces for sometime now but this is the single largest purchase of the two-wheelers for this task sanctioned by the government.
"Movement on bikes will give CRPF personnel the much needed stealth in movement and even save them from getting trapped in mines and Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blasts as they can easily pass over them without putting pressure on their trigger mechanism leading to the explosion," they said.
The official said bikes are the new "force multipliers" for troops in ground operations.
Apart from these, 36 bullet-proof vehicles would be procured by the country's largest paramilitary force for counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir and North Eastern states under the same government sanction.
The force, which has been in the recent past entrusted with the security duties of VIPs like BJP President Amit Shah and Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari, Rajiv Pratap Rudy among others and former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi would also be getting 40 new bullet-proof vehicles for these specialised duties, the official said.