The Rapid Action Force (RAF) is a specialised wing of the

Central Reserve Police Force The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is a federal police organisation in India under the authority of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) of the Government of India. It is one among the Central Armed Police Forces. The CRPF's primary role li ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

to deal with riot and crowd control situations.

History

RAF was raised on 11 December 1991 with headquarters in New Delhi. It became fully operational on 7 October 1992, to deal with riots, riot like situations,

crowd control Crowd control is a public security practice in which large crowds are managed in order to prevent the outbreak of crowd crushes, affray, fights involving drunk and disorderly people or riots. Crowd crushes in particular can cause many hundreds ...

, rescue and relief operations, and related unrest. The first five battalions were raised by October 1992 and an additional 5 battalions were added in April 1994. In October 2003, with 11 years of service, the force was presented with the President's colours. On 9 November 2013, the RAF Academy of Public Order was established in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. In 2017, the Indian government approved an additional five battalions to be based in New Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Organization

RAF is commanded by an

Inspector-General of Police An Inspector General of Police is a senior police officer in the police force or police service of several nations. The rank usually refers to the head of a large regional command within a police service, and in many countries refers to the most se ...

(IGP), functioning at New Delhi. The RAF is divided into two ranges headed by a DIGP at New Delhi and Mumbai. The RAF has a distinctive uniform with a blue-coloured camouflage pattern which symbolizes peace. Its motto is "Serving Humanity with Sensitive Policing". It currently has 15 specialized trained and equipped

battalion A battalion is a military unit, typically consisting of 300 to 1,200 soldiers commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and subdivided into a number of companies (usually each commanded by a major or a captain). In some countries, battalions are ...

s, which are numbered 83, 91, 97, 99 to 108, 114 and 194 in the CRPF. Each battalion is headed by a

Commanding Officer The commanding officer (CO) or sometimes, if the incumbent is a general officer, commanding general (CG), is the officer in command of a military unit. The commanding officer has ultimate authority over the unit, and is usually given wide latitu ...

(CO), an officer of the rank of

Commandant Commandant ( or ) is a title often given to the officer in charge of a military (or other uniformed service) training establishment or academy. This usage is common in English-speaking nations. In some countries it may be a military or police ran ...

. The RAF Battalions of CRPF are located at the following places: ''

Team A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson (academic), Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interde ...

'' is the smallest independent functional unit of the force and is commanded by an

Inspector Inspector, also police inspector or inspector of police, is a police rank. The rank or position varies in seniority depending on the organization that uses it. Australia In Australian police forces, the rank of inspector is generally the ne ...

. Each team has three components, namely riot control, tear some and fire. Each company of RAF has one team composed of women personnel to deal with women demonstrators. The force is equipped with

non-lethal weapon Non-lethal weapons, also called nonlethal weapons, less-lethal weapons, less-than-lethal weapons, non-deadly weapons, compliance weapons, or pain-inducing weapons are weapons intended to be less likely to kill a living target than conventional ...

s for dispersing the crowd with minimum harm and losses. It is always kept in readiness for rapid deployment when the situation so demands and are only deployed by the orders of

Ministry of Home Affairs An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs. Lists of current ministries of internal affairs Named "ministry" * Ministry ...

on specific demands from state governments for a short duration. Horse mounted

Role

Riot and crowd control

This unit has been used to deal with communal violence, law and order duty, festival and election duties and agitation.

United Nations Peace Keeping Operations

The CRPF female and male contingents under the arrangements of RAF are deployed in United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), Monrovia and Zwedru in UN Peacekeeping mission since 2007–08. CRPF Female Formed Police Unit was the first of its kind in the world, which was deployed under the aegis of UN Peace Keeping Mission.

Humanitarian activities

RAF has also succeeded in projecting the human face of the Government and built bridges with the public by carrying out prompt rescue and relief operations during floods, earthquakes, cyclones and outbreak of epidemics in various parts of the country.

Anti-terror operations

During the November 2008 Mumbai Terror Attacks, RAF was involved in cordoning the areas around the Oberoi Trident and the Taj Mahal hotels.

Kamlesh Kumari Kamlesh Kumari was an Indian constable who served with the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and a recipient of the Ashoka Chakra, the highest possible award conferred during peacetime by the Republic of India. Kamlesh Kumari died on 13 Dec ...

of the 88 Mahila Battalion was posthumously awarded the

Ashoka Chakra Ashoka (, ; also ''Asoka''; 304 – 232 BCE), popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was the third emperor of the Maurya Empire of Indian subcontinent during to 232 BCE. His empire covered a large part of the Indian subcontinent, ...

for her bravery during the 2001 Indian Parliament attack.Dutta, Anshuman G. (11 August 2009
Armed only with a wireless set, she rushed in to face terrorists
Archive.mid-day.com. Retrieved on 2018-12-26.

References

{{Law enforcement in India Government agencies established in 1992 Specialist law enforcement agencies of India Federal law enforcement agencies of India 1991 establishments in Delhi