Police are contemplating limited use of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in drives against Maoists after one of its assistant commandants allegedly leaked the operation data to rebels.

Senior police officers on Sunday reviewed the deployment of the CRPF, the nodal agency for anti-Maoist operations across India, in the state in the wake of the development. They stressed the need of limited use of the central force personnel in the anti-Naxalite operations.

Sanjay Kumar Yadav, an assistant commandant of the CRPF’s 159 battalion deployed in Gaya’s Imamganj, was detained on Thursday on the charge of leaking information to the Maoists. Dilip Yadav, a conduit between the Maoists and the officer, was sent to jail on Friday.

A team of senior CRPF officers has reached Gaya to interrogate Yadav. CRPF’s deputy inspector-general Chiranjiv Kumar said the allegation against the officer was being probed. Gaya senior superintendent of police Nishant Kumar Tiwary said a warrant of arrest had been obtained against the assistant commandant.

Sources said director-general of police Abhyanand talked to the CPRF’s chief, Dilip Trivedi, over phone on Thursday and told him about the recorded conversation between the officer in question and the Maoists, which led to the failure of certain operations in the Gaya region.

Inspector-general (operations) Amit Kumar said the detention of the CRPF officer would not hamper the operation against the rebels. But an officer associated with the anti-Maoist operations said: “There is need to ponder over the use of the central force in the operations against the rebels. The need of the hour is to engage more personnel of the state armed police.”

He said the strength of the armed police had stretched to around 50,000. Also, additional superintendents of police were being deputed at police lines in the districts to help the SPs in deployment of the personnel, he said.