Every Independence Day, the ministry of home affairs announces the names of officers eligible for a police medal for meritorious service or gallantry.
This year one name stood out — DIG Nalin Prabhat, allegedly responsible for the April 2010 Dantewada massacre in which Maoists gunned down 75 CRPF men.
A CRPF court of inquiry (CoI) had raised several questions about Prabhat. DC Dey, Addl DGP, who had headed the CoI, had been critical of his role. The report had accused Prabhat of implementing his Kashmir experiences in Chhatisgarh without spending much time in Maoist-affected areas.
BC Khanduri, CRPF spokesperson, however, said the ministry had awarded Prabhat the gallantry medal for his action in Kashmir in 2009. In an operation in J&K, Prabhat had gunned down four militants in Pulwama and two in Lal Chowk.
Prabhat reached Chhattisgarh for the first time in his life on April 2, 2010. After leaving Raipur he went to Jagdalpur — the Bastar district headquarters of the CRPF — summoned the Dantewada battalion commandant and ordered him to move his men for an area domination exercise and not to return to the camp for three days.
The order proved a critical mistake as the CRPF men were caught unawares by Maoists hiding in the jungles. “Operations against Maoists are different from the ones against Kashmiris,” a CRPF officer, familiar with the CoI, told DNA. “He [Prabhat] should have spent some time there instead of being in a hurry to show results. Had he done his homework, those men would not have died.”
Within days of the massacre, Prabhat, a 1992-batch IPS officer, was moved to Chandigarh. But the CRPF dithered over the report and ordered a review by IPS Rakesh Jharuhar, special DG. The review, said a source, tried to shift the blame on Prabhat’s senior Bimal Kumar Bisht who was the inspector general of police, CRPF, at the time of the Maoist attack.
But, official records showed that Bisht was on a tour, visiting a CRPF battalion in Ambikapur, the headquarters of Surguja district in Chhattisgarh. This in effect meant that Prabhat gave the orders for an area domination exercise to the Dantewada battalion commandant.
In his report on the massacre, EN Rammohan, DG, BSF, had pointed out the “lack of leadership” in the CRPF. “I found several loopholes in the system,” Rammohan told DNA. “The lack of leadership was a key reason, but I did not name any officer in my report.”
Also, Prabhat’s detractors want to know why the ministry awarded the medal to him in 2011 for something he had done in 2009.
“Why did the ministry did not name him last year?” asked a senior CRPF officer. “Does this mean he was ineligible in 2010 and now he is? Or did the 2010 massacre, considered the as country’s worst, stop the ministry from announcing his name?”
Despite several attempts, Prabhat remained unavailable for a comment.
