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• The paramilitary Assam Rifles felicitated the surviving soldiers of Operation Dudhi, marked in the country’s defence history as India’s most successful counter-insurgency operation more than 30 years ago.

About Operation Dudhi

• Back in 1991, the Assam Rifles had eliminated 72 militants in a single counter-insurgency operation in Jammu & Kashmir.
• The operation, undertaken by the battalion during its tenure in Jammu & Kashmir from 1990 to 1992, remains the most successful counter-insurgency operation conducted by any security force to date. Not only the battalion had eliminated 72 militants but it also apprehended 13 others in that operation.
• Conducted on May 3, 1991, Operation Dudhi was undertaken by a column comprising a Junior Commissioned Officer (JCO) and 14 other ranks under the command of Naib Subedar Padam Bahadur Chhetri.
• The column had moved from Battalion Headquarters, Chowkibal, for a routine patrol to check the winter vacated post of Dudhi, with the staging camp established at Bari Baik.
• In the fierce firefight that continued till the intervening night of May 5 and 6, soldiers Kameshwer Prasad and Ram Kumar Arya laid down their lives while RK Yadav sustained injuries.

About Assam Rifles

• Assam Rifles is a Central Paramilitary Force under the Central Armed Police Forces.
• It came into being in 1835, as a militia called the ‘Cachar Levy’, to primarily protect British Tea estates and their settlements against tribal raids.
• It significantly contributed to the opening of the Assam region to administration and commerce and over time it came to be known as the “right arm of the civil and left arm of the military”.
• Assam Rifles has two battalions stationed in Jammu and Kashmir and one National Disaster Relief Force battalion, which is playing its active role in the case of natural calamities.
• Although India has been contributing to UN peacekeeping for many years, the addition of the Riflewomen Team of the Assam Rifles adds another social and human dimension to our commitment to the community of nations.
• Major role post-Independence:
  • Conventional combat role during the Sino-India War 1962.
  • Operations in a foreign land as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force to Sri Lanka in 1987 (Operation Pawan).
  • Peacekeeping role in the North-Eastern areas of India.
• In November 2019, MHA proposed to merge it with the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP).
  • ITBP is a specialized mountain force, raised in October 1962.
  • It is deployed on border guarding duties from Karakoram Pass in Ladakh to Jachep La in Arunachal Pradesh covering 3488 km of the Indo-China Border.

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