Opinion First principles

Three security personnel lost their lives and eight were injured in Bihar’s Aurangabad district on Monday when they attempted to defuse a bomb, most likely planted by the Maoists. Not only did the CRPF and Bihar police team not wait for the arrival of the bomb disposal squad (BDS), but they also set to work on the device with their bare hands. This is the latest in a series of reported SOP violations.

In the case of last month’s Maoist attack in Chhattisgarh’s Sukma district, which claimed the lives of 15 security personnel, officials alleged that the CRPF-state police team took the same route to the road construction site they were protecting on consecutive days, even as SOPs dictated the avoidance of beaten tracks in anti-Naxal operations. From the April 2010 Dantewada ambush that killed 76 security personnel to the May 2013 attack on a Congress convoy in the Darbha valley, Maoists have, far too often, managed to monitor their targets’ movements and surprise them.

It is the responsibility of the field commander to ensure SOPs are followed by his personnel and that they don’t walk into avoidable traps or become too careless or predictable or both, handing the advantage to the adversary. In the case of bomb disposal — to return to the Aurangabad incident — it is a first principle that no one who is not trained should be allowed to touch or move a suspected explosive device. Why then did the officer heading the team allow the bomb to be touched, especially when Bihar has dedicated BDS teams?

The BDS’s delay in reaching the site must be investigated. But that will not absolve the CRPF leadership at all levels. It is one thing to lose personnel in fighting, it is altogether another to lose them because of lack of enforcement of SOPs or their violation. At a time when the battle against the Maoists is on course, such incidents only serve to embolden and motivate the insurgents, to say nothing of the unnecessary and tragic loss of lives.