CRPF Records First Fatality-Free Operational Year in 47 Years as Maoist Violence Ends in India

Key facts

• The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) has completed 12 consecutive months without a single operational fatality anywhere in India, the first such year since the period ending January 1979.
• CRPF chief GP Singh credited modern hardware, better training, strategic planning and rapid evacuation of injured personnel to secondary and tertiary medical facilities for the milestone.
• In 2025, eight of the nine CRPF personnel killed were lost in action in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) areas of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Odisha, with one death in field firing practice; 2024 saw 12 deaths across Chhattisgarh, Jammu and Kashmir and Manipur.
• India was declared Maoist-free on March 30, 2026, after a crackdown producing record surrenders, gunfights and arrests; the last Maoist Central Committee member, Misir Besra, was arrested on July 28 in Jharkhand.
• At the peak of Maoism in the mid-2000s, India had over 100 LWE-affected districts, with nearly 50,000 CRPF personnel deployed, including 40,000 in Chhattisgarh's Bastar; no Maoist-hit district remains.
• The last CRPF fatalities were Inspector Kousal Kumar Mishra and Head Constable Mahendra Lashkar, killed in a blast during an area domination exercise in West Singhbhum, Jharkhand, in October 2025.
• The CRPF, India's largest central armed police force with over 300,000 personnel, is now focusing on Manipur's ethnic violence, with battalions moved from Bastar and more deployments planned amid the worsening Naga-Kuki conflict, including replacing Assam Rifles at some locations.