Indian Armed Forces 59 commandos desert CRPF en masse

Indian Armed Forces 59 commandos desert CRPF en masse

ISLAMABAD: (APP) Much to the embarrassment of Indian armed forces, 59 commandos of Central Reserve Police Force have gone missing from a train just before they were to report for duty in Bihar as part of their first deployment.

According to Kashmir Media Service, the incident of mass desertion occurred at the Mughal Sarai Station when the commandos, on way from their training centre in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian occupied Kashmir, after their 5-week basic training, apparently decided to abandon their forward journey and desert en masse to go to their homes or some undisclosed location.

Officials said that the soldiers also did not inform their contingent commander on board the train as they made their daring escape bid in the night.

Shocked by the utter disregard to rules by these soldiers recruited in the country's largest paramilitary in 2011, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has ordered for a Court of Inquiry into the incident, terming it as a case of unauthorized absence by the force.

Senior officials of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (CoBRA) and CRPF said that the soldiers were scheduled to report at the headquarters of the 205th CoBRA unit at Gaya in Bihar, yesterday, for their onward deployment for conducting special anti-Naxal operations in Bihar.

It is being ascertained as to how all of the men decided to make the slip en masse, they said, adding the soldiers were "not armed".

The officials added that maximum of the commandos who undertook this mass desertion hail from the states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

The CoBRA was raised in 2009 by the Indian government under CRPF to act as a special guerrilla combat wing for tackling naxalites as well as insurgents in the northeast with the aid of specific intelligence inputs.