The Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs will discuss the role of Central Armed Police Forces in West Bengal. TMC MP Derek O'Brien raised the issue on Wednesday, citing alleged police brutality. Committee chairman Radha Mohan Das Agarwal said the panel could widen the discussion to examine CAPF roles more broadly.

The Parliamentary Committee on Home Affairs will reportedly take up a discussion on the role and deployment of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) in West Bengal after Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien raised the matter at a meeting on Wednesday. O'Brien submitted a three-page letter to committee chairman Radha Mohan Das Agarwal, urging the panel to examine what he described as the role of CAPF personnel in alleged "police atrocities and brutality" in West Bengal, according to sources cited in a Hindustan Times report. As per the report, Agarwal read out portions of the letter during the meeting before suggesting that the proposed discussion could be widened to examine the role of CAPFs more broadly, rather than restricting it to West Bengal. The move came as the committee was considering two separate subjects - "Crime against Children", based on the views of the Ministry of Law and Justice, and the "Implementation of Centrally Sponsored Schemes in North-Eastern States", for which officials from the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) appeared before the panel. Most MPs present at the meeting agreed to hold the discussion, with Agarwal assuring members that the matter would be taken up soon, as per a PTI report. In his letter, O'Brien highlighted the scale of CAPF deployment during elections. He said more than 2.4 lakh CAPF personnel were deployed in West Bengal during the 2026 assembly elections, compared with about 3.4 lakh personnel deployed across the country during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The TMC MP further claimed that more than 700 companies, amounting to around 70,000 personnel, continued to remain deployed in West Bengal after the assembly polls to help prevent post-election violence. O'Brien's letter also alleged that incidents of violence continued to be reported in the state, with TMC workers and supporters being disproportionately targeted. The proposed discussion comes amid continuing allegations by the BJP and TMC against each other over attacks on their respective workers and supporters in West Bengal.