The CRPF will soon send its personnel to Libya, CRPF director general (DG) GP Singh said at the raising day function of the force on Sunday. A CRPF contingent will be incharge of the embassy security and posted in internal security duty, people aware of the matter said, adding that around 50 officers have been selected. CRPF personnel to be sent to Libya to secure Indian embassy

Addressing his troops on the raising day function, Singh said, “CRPF is not only working inside the country but as part of the United Nations missions, it is posted in Sri Lanka, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia and other countries as peacekeepers. Currently CRPF is there in the Baghdad embassy and is ready to be sent to Libya.”

Singh did not share other details of the CRPF’s proposed operations in Libya.

“The MHA has asked CRPF to prepare its best officers. Personnel who have experience of working in conflict, notably J&K, North East and Left Wing Extremism Areas(LWE) areas have been handpicked. The teams are ready and will fly out as soon as the clearance is received from the MHA and MEA,” one officer, who asked not to be named, said.

Until 2019, the CRPF was posted in Tripoli(Libya) to guard the Indian embassy but the contingent was pulled up after violence escalated in the country due to the civil war there. India reopened its embassy in June last year, after almost five years during which the mission in Tripoli was maintained by a skeletal staff consisting of a gardener and a consular clerk. Prior to the uprising against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, about 18,000 Indians worked in the country. Amid the fragile security situation in Libya in 2014, some 3,800 Indian nationals were repatriated, including six who had been kidnapped by the Islamic State.

At the CRPF’s 87th Raising Day function, union home secretary Govind Mohan said that the CRPF has set up 149 camps of forward operating bases in core Naxal areas, which have pushed back forced the left wing extremists. Mohan said the ministry has identified challenges with which the CRPF personnel are living in the camps and conducting anti-Naxal ops. “In the LWE areas, during an assessment we found out the challenges faced by the jawan – drinking water, road connectivity, mobile phone connectivity. The MHA is in mission mode to provide the best facilities at the camps. In some places such as Bastar, Sukma, Bijapur, Dantewada where there were no roads all these years. The CRPF has set up camps so we are confident in winning this battle in Central India against LWE. It is our duty that we provide the best facilities at the earliest so that our brave personnel have the facilities and can at least take rest when they return to their camps. The Border Roads Organisations(BRO) is working to build roads in core Naxal areas and made it a priority. The Naxal violence is reducing. It is because of the strength of CRPF that the ministry has resolved to end Naxal violence by March 2021, 2026,” Govind said.