Morale of police is down: Jharkhand top cop

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The beheading of Jharkhand Police inspector Francis Induwar by Naxalites has sent shock waves across the country. Even as the Jharkhand Police are demanding better security and thirsting for revenge, the state's Inspector General of Police BB Pradhan admitted that the tragic killing of Induwar had affected the morale of his force.

Pradhan spoke to CNN-IBN's India@9 on Wednesday, a day after Induwar's body was found on the Ranchi-Jamshedpur highway.

CNN-IBN: There is a lot of anger in Ranchi. What details can you give us now about the group that kidnapped and beheaded Francis Induwar? Does it have linkages across the country or is it a a more localised group?

BB Pradhan: CPI(Maoist) is the most important LWE (Left wing extremist) outfit in Jharkhand and CPI(Maoist) has taken responsibility for this killing particularly in this area where kidnapping has taken place and killing has taken place. Kundan Pahan group is the most important and they have taken responsibility for this incident.

CNN-IBN: Are you planning to launch special offensive against this group now in the aftermath of your officer's killing?

BB Pradhan: Operations are on and bigger operations are also on the offing and more successes will definitely come in the coming days and coming months.

CNN-IBN: We are looking at the statistics and it would seem Jharkhand and Chhatisgarh are the two areas where violence seem to be escalating. What would you say the two states really need from the Centre in this fight against Naxals?

BB Pradhan: This is a continuous process like our modernisation of forces is a continuous process. We are more into technological inputs so far as intelligence is concerned. We are computerising at various levels. We are establishing modern state of art interrogation centers. We are updating our records. We are basically into modernisation in a big way. Weapons wise we have almost become self-sufficient. Communication wise so far as wireless communication is concerned we have already achieved self sufficiency. So far as mobility is concerned, transport facility is concerned, basic police units like police stations also we have been successful in providing all Naxal-affected police stations required number of vehicles. So all this is going on.

CNN-IBN: You are talking about modernisation. Yet we hear of those anguish, words coming from Induwar's son Abhishek and also from his wife. She has been blaming the government, the police department. She says you didn't respond fast enough when he was kidnapped. You are talking about all the wireless equipment that was available, all the communication equipment that was available. Why did it take five days and you still could not trace him in time?

BB Pradhan: No, no. We were trying at all levels and at different wings of police department were at the job. We were in fact getting information that he is safe and sound and as we saw the dead body yesterday it was fresh. The injuries were fresh. Time to time we were getting information but we were not in a position to reach him and we could not recover him, that's our failure, definitely. But we tried our best to recover him and ok at last moment they took some decision and immediately carried it out and we could not succeed in recovering him. But we will definitely get all the criminals involved in this incident.

CNN-IBN: We spoke to policemen at the funeral. There was a lot of fear. More than 300 policemen have been killed by Naxals this year. Are you worried your men are losing morale in this fight?

BB Pradhan: They are losing morale so far as the incidents are concerned. Any incident affects the policemen, either it is big or small, it affects the morale. We are trying to address all this problems and there is a concern for security for all our men and officers. We are also going to address their concerns.

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