Srinagar attack: Give us guns not lathis, CRPF jawans fume

A day after the Srinagar attack caught them napping, anger erupted among CRPF jawans who said they were sitting ducks for terrorists.

"We die for the country, but there is no value for our lives." said one jawan.

At the wreath laying ceremony at Police Control Room here, some jawans voiced their resentment against the government for arming them with lathis instead of sophisticated arms while dealing with the law and order situation in the state.

They claimed that most of their colleagues who were killed or injured in yesterday's attack in Bemina area on the outskirts of Srinagar by two suspected Pakistani terrorists were wielding just batons instead of firearms.

"The main reason why the five jawans wwere killed yesterday is that they were unarmed. We are deployed with sticks. They don't care about our lives," one jawan said.

IG CRPF, Kashmir, V S Yadav, however, dismissed suggestions that the CRPF men were unarmed when the attack took place.

"We have a standard operating procedure and that was followed. One-third of the jawans of the concerned (CRPF) company were armed, one third were carrying the riot gear and one-third had lathis," Yadav said.

Those killed in the militant attack were Assistant Sub-Inspector A B Singh, constables Om Prakash, L Parmol, Subhash and Satish Shah.

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