Explained: Why 40 CRPF jawans who made supreme sacrifice in Pulwama won’t be accorded martyr status

The 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans who made the supreme sacrifice in the Pulwama terror attack carried out by Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed will not be accorded the status of “shaheed” (martyr) in the government’s record. This is because of a clause that bars the government from according martyr status to the jawans killed in the line of duty.

On Thursday, Congress president Rahul Gandhi took a jibe at the government and questioned why those killed in Pulwama will be accorded the status of martyr. The issue was first raised by RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav who on February 14 trained guns at the BJP government saying the government refers the paramilitary (CRPF, BSP, ITBP etc) soldiers as a martyr, but doesn’t accord them the same status in official records.

According to a response to an RTI query by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Defence ministry in 2017, there is no term as ‘martyr’ or ‘shaheed’ used in Army or police and instead, a soldier or policeman killed is called ‘battle casualty’ or ‘operations casualty’, respectively.

However, a report by PTI in July 2018 said that the Ministry of Home Affairs has given in-principle approval to accord martyr status to paramilitary personnel killed in the line of duty. Last year, the government had informed the Delhi High Court that a proposal to grant martyr status was under active consideration.

The demand to accord martyr status has picked up in recent times. Associations of retired paramilitary forces and those serving them have been asking the government to make provisions to accord martyr status for soldiers who sacrifice their lives for the country.

Also, the seventh Central Pay Commission had batted for granting martyr status to personnel of central paramilitary forces at par with the armed forces.

As per government’s records, over 10 lakh personnel are serving in seven paramilitary forces — Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Assam Rifles, Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and National Security Guards (NSG).