Illustrious police officer and former BSF chief EN Rammohan (77) passed away on Sunday at AIIMS here. He was admitted about 10 days back after he met with an accident at his home and suffered a fracture in his ribs. Rammohan was also suffering from prostrate cancer. His family members said Rammohan breathed his last early morning and cremation took place in the evening at lodhi road crematorium.
Born in Thalassery in Kerala, Rammohan belonged to the 1965 batch of IPS officers of Assam-Meghalaya cadre. Known as Rambo among colleagues, he worked as DIG and IG in CRPF, ITBP and headed anti-Naxal operations besides anti-terror operations in Kashmir during turbulent times. He was Director General of BSF during 1997 to 2000. Post retirement, many Governments used his expertise in operations. Rammohan was the part of the three founding officers in building National Security Guard (NSG) in mid 80s.
BSF chief KK Sharma said the former chief’s death was a big loss for the country’s largest border guarding force. “He was a fine person, a thorough professional, man of integrity and known for his jawan-centric leadership. He used to lead from the front and he will always be remembered for his leadership style,” he said.
Rammohan, who sported a handlebar mustache, was regularly seen on television news channels discussing internal security issues. The Union Home Ministry had appointed him as the head of the fact-finding probe panel which went into the lapses that took place during the deadly Naxal ambush in Chhattisgarh in 2010 that killed 76 security men.
On many occasions, Rammohan expressed his frank opinions on the reasons behind the Naxal uprising in Central India. He pinpointed two basic reasons behind it. According to him, the non-implementation of land rights and land ceiling laws were the first reason for the support of Naxals in the tribal and backward regions. The second reason he pointed out was the exploitation and cheating of tribals when they came to market for selling the forest produces.
“If CRPF is authorized to control these two issues to safe guard the rights of tribal people, I can say with authority that Naxal ideology will be vanished. But these are the responsibility of political leadership and administration,” he had averred.
He lost his only son Army pilot Major K.E. Padmanabhan (34) in 2008 in a chopper crash in Siachen Glaciers. Rammohan is survived by his wife Prema and daughter K.E Priyamvada.
