Rashtriya Rifles to celebrate its silver jubilee tomorrow
It was raised on 01 Oct 1990 by the then COAS Gen VN Sharma with Lt Gen PC Monkotia as the first Director General of Rashtriya Rifles.
Three of the six Rashtriya Rifles battalions initially raised were deployed in Punjab and three in J&K. Impetus was given by Gen BC Joshi under whom major expansion took place, including a Rashtriya Rifles sector being raised in the North East.
Later, all Rashtriya Rifles battalions moved to J&K and since then, Rashtriya Rifles has been engaged in low intensity conflict in J&K only. The present Director General of Rashtriya Rifles is Lt Gen Sandeep Singh.
The continuous employment of Army in Counter Insurgency duties along with existing conventional threat warranted a specially structured and organised force to deal with India’s internal security situation.
A credible force was required to be raised to deal with frequent deployment of Army’s formations and units in internal security, which could also provide support to the Indian Army during conventional conflicts.
Rashtriya Rifles was raised with 100% personnel on deputation from the Indian Army, from all Arms and services, on an all India/ all class basis. Rashtriya Rifles has neutralised a total of 16,368 terrorists, which includes 8,522 killed, 6,737 apprehended and 1,109 surrendered. The Force has recovered a huge quantity of warlike stores till date.
Support Our Journalism
We cannot do without you.. your contribution supports unbiased journalism
IBNS is not driven by any ism- not wokeism, not racism, not skewed secularism, not hyper right-wing or left liberal ideals, nor by any hardline religious beliefs or hyper nationalism. We want to serve you good old objective news, as they are. We do not judge or preach. We let people decide for themselves. We only try to present factual and well-sourced news.
