NSA Doval to review CRPF parade, address its troops on raising day next week

The NSA will be the chief guest at the event which will be held at the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) officers training academy and group centre in Gurgaon's Kadarpur on March 19, the officials confirmed to PTI.

The force was raised in 1939 under the British.

This will be a second time that Doval will attend as the chief guest a martial event conducted by any of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) since he was appointed as the top security officer by the Modi government in 2014.

Doval had reviewed an Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) parade in 2015 when the force guarding the China border marked the 54th years of its raising.

The NSA, during the CRPF event, will pay floral tributes to the martyrs of the force including the 40 personnel killed in a terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama last month and will take the salute subsequently, they said.

The 74-year-old retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer, a former head of the Intelligence Bureau, is also expected to decorate CRPF jawans and officers with gallantry medals announced on the occasion of the Republic Day this year.

He will also address CRPF troops and the country's top internal security brass during the event.

Challenges posing the force post the February 14 suicide attack in J-K and issues related to counterterrorism in the Kashmir valley are expected to be part of Doval's talk, sources said.

The CRPF, the country's largest CAPF with over 3-lakh personnel in its ranks, has been celebrating its rasing day on March 19 since the last year to commemorate the act of the force being given the Presidents colours this day in 1950 by the then Home Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

The Presidents colours are considered to be the greatest honour bestowed upon a force or its unit in recognition of exceptional service rendered by it to the nation, both during war and peace.

The force, in 2015, had changed the raising day event date to July 27 to mark the historic day when its first battalion was raised in Neemuch in Madhya Pradesh on the date in 1939, as the Crown Representatives Police (CRP) under the British rule.

Before this, the annual event to mark the force's raising day was held in November-October. Till 1983, it was held on October 31, the birthday of Sardar Patel. Due to the death of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on this day in 1984, the anniversary celebration date was changed.

The annual event witnesses participation of thousands of troops and officers who come to Delhi from various CRPF formations spread across the country.

The CRPF, at present, has over 250 battalions and it has been designated by the government as the lead internal security, anti-Naxal operations force and counterterrorism unit in Jammu and Kashmir.