The paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has not suffered a single operational fatality anywhere in the country over a year for the first time in 47 years. In 2025, eight out of nine CRPF personnel were killed in action in the Left Wing Extremism (LWE)-hit areas. In 2024, 12 deaths were reported from Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Manipur.
One CRPF person died in field firing practice.
He credited the latest and contemporary hardware, better training and strategic planning, and focus on post-incident response, including high-speed evacuation of injured personnel to secondary and tertiary medical facilities, for contributing immensely to achieving this milestone. Head constable Mahendra Lashkar was killed in action on the same day in the same incident. CRPF chief GP Singh called a fatality-free year for the first time since the period ending January 1979 a significant milestone. In a post on X, he said 12 consecutive months have passed without any operational fatality. Inspector Kousal Kumar Mishra succumbed to his injuries in a blast during an area domination exercise in October 2025 in Jharkhand’s then Maoist-affected area, West Singhbhum. The CRPF is the largest central armed police force with a strength of over 300,000. Nearly 50,000 CRPF personnel were deployed in LWE-hit areas at the peak of Maoism, including 40,000 in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar, its nerve centre. The last Maoist Central Committee member, Misir Besra, was arrested on July 28 from Jharkhand, where the last two CRPF personnel were killed in action in October 2025.
