The District Reserve Guard (DRG), which gunned down top Maoist leader Basava Raju, 70, was formed around a decade ago by the state government as a special force in Naxal-affected districts for effective operations against Maoists. Since its inception, the DRG has been at the forefront of anti-Naxal operations in the Bastar region, and several jawans from the unit have lost their lives fighting Left Wing Extremism (LWE). On the lines of the DRG, the state police had in 2022 formed the Bastar Fighters, under which tribals from remote villages were recruited. In January this year, eight security personnel – four each from the DRG and the Bastar Fighters – and a driver were killed after Maoists attacked their vehicle in the jungles of Kutru in Chhattisgarh’s Bijapur district. In April 2023, the DRG suffered a blow when 10 jawans and a civilian driver were killed after their vehicle was blown up in an IED blast in Aranpur, Dantewada. Many DRG jawans are surrendered Naxals, who were recruited after meeting certain criteria. One of the criteria is working as Gopniya Sainik (loosely translated as covert police informers) and winning the government’s trust. The government first issued the order to recruit 600 DRG jawans in Naxal-affected districts of Sukma, Bijapur and Dantewada in May 2015. During Salwa Judum, several civilians who were armed as Police Officers (SPOs) were later recruited into the DRG, a move which attracted criticism from rights groups in Bastar. But top police officials hailed it as a game changer, since local tribals, including surrendered Naxals, had elaborate knowledge of remote villages, topography and hilly terrain of the vast forested area in the Bastar region, which is larger than Kerala. At present, 1,160 DRG posts have been approved in the state. All seven districts of the Naxal-affected Bastar region have DRG units.
