M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, March 5: CRPF Director General (DG) Dr Sujoy Lal Thaosen on Sunday ‘put on rank’ officer B K Sharma as sector IG CRPF Jorhat in Assam at the ‘Pipping Ceremony’ at Dhurwa.
Sharma has already taken over as sector IG CRPF and is set to leave for his new assignment as sector IG CRPF at Jorhat Assam quite soon.
A DAGO, (Directly Appointed Gazetted Officer) Sharma joined the security forces in 1989 and soon earned a well known title of ‘master strategist against the naxals in Jharkhand’.
He became Commandant of the 13th battalion of the CRPF in 2005 and had had his stint in Palamu. His 13th Bn CRPF had won many laurels then. In 2010, Sharma became DIG (Ops) CRPF based in Ranchi head quarter.
It was a terrible time for Palamu which was ravaged by the extremism in the early 2010. The CRPF then was seen as the worst enemy by the naxals. The naxals wanted to harm it by all means including ambush, gun fight, land mines.
Sources said Sharma had a couple of close saves with death at the hands of the naxals where his vehicle in which he was brutally attacked by the naxals. For some time, as Sharma had recalled then, ‘We thought we would be dead fighting as the naxals in hundreds had surrounded our land mines proof vehicle like a swarm of bees but we forced the naxals to retreat.’ He had further said, “We used to have a fraction of cell phone light to ward off the darkness in our land mines proof vehicle.
There was a trio of security officers then in Palamu and Garhwa namely B K Sharma, the then IPS SP Garhwa Saket Kumar Singh and Udayan Singh the then SP Palamu.
The trio was a despised by the naxals. Each of these three security officers had incurred the wrath of the naxals as naxals during their attacks or ambush on the security forces used to shout and shower abuses on these three officers. The naxals used to ask them to surrender while the trio asked them to buy life by laying arms. In this battle of wits, Sharma and others always outshone naxals.
Sources said operations against naxals coded as Double Bull, Octopus, Operations on tri junction etc had Sharma in the forefront of the fight against naxals.
The pipping ceremony was attended by ADG Central Zone Vitul Kumar, sector IG CRPF Jharkhand Amit Kumar, IG Ops CRPF Rajiv Singh, Md Hasnain IG communication and others.
