The Central Reserve Police Force has started weeding out hundreds of unfit personnel from the “lowest medical category”, weeks after a jawan and suspected drug addict shot three colleagues last month at a camp in Jammu and Kashmir.

The “boarding out” of jawans with psychiatric problems, including acute depression, and those with liquor or drug addiction follows a circular that CRPF director-general Rajeev Bhatnagar issued last month, sources said.

The March 25 circular asked all CRPF formations across the country to identify jawans in the Shape 5 medical category — the lowest— and weed them out.

'The boarding out of such personnel is not new and has been done earlier too. This time the incident involving a jawan killing three of his colleagues in Udhampur triggered the decision as the accused was found to be an addict. The number of personnel from the lowest medical category who are being sacked will be in a few hundreds,” DIG (intelligence) Moses Dhinakaran told The Telegraph.

The accused jawan, who tried to shoot himself after killing his colleagues, is in hospital and said to be still critical.

Dhinakaran said many unfit jawans were posted in sensitive zones like Jammu and Kashmir and Maoist belts. “It is risky to have such unfit jawans in combat ranks in these sensitive areas,” the officer said.

'Jawans who are being sacked on grounds of medical fitness will get post-retirement benefits in keeping with service rules.”

Only those who had joined before 2004 will be eligible for such benefits.

According to an internal report submitted to the Union home ministry, nearly 22,000 CRPF personnel in combat ranks are in the low medical category, with Shape 5 being the lowest. Most of these jawans are aged above 35.

Sources said the CRPF, which has three lakh personnel, has taken several initiatives to strengthen its operational effectiveness since the February 14 Pulwama terror attack left 40 troopers dead.

Usually, jawans in the low medical category are removed from combat and operation duties and assigned administrative responsibilities.

'Many jawans also suffer injuries during combat action,” the official said. “Others rendered unfit after years of deployment in inhospitable terrain are assigned administrative duties.”

The official said disabilities in the paramilitary forces have been classified under three categories — those caused by injuries suffered in combating terrorists/Maoists; those caused by sickness/accident; and those caused by psychiatric conditions or drug/alcohol addiction.

“Jawans from the first two categories are rehabilitated in the force after assessing their capability and health, but those declared unfit because of psychiatric diseases are sacked,” the official said.