Indian Army Corps of Military Police

Corps of Military Police
The logo of the Corps of Military police
Active	1939-Present
Country	India
Branch	Indian Army
Size	9,000 Personnel Approx
Regimental Centre	Bangalore, Karnataka
Nickname(s)	Provost
Motto(s)	Seva Tatha Sahayata
Anniversaries	October 18(Corps Raising Day)
Decorations	• PVSM-1 • AVSM-1 • SC-1 • SM-5 • MMs-1 • MiD-5

• PVSM-1
• AVSM-1
• SC-1
• SM-5
• MMs-1

Corps of Military Police (CMP) is the military police of the Indian Army. In addition, the CMP is trained to handle prisoners of war and to regulate traffic, as well as to handle basic telecommunication equipment such as telephone exchanges. They can be identified by their red berets, white lanyards and belts, and they also wear a black brassard with the letters MP imprinted in red.

The term 'red berets' is synonymous with the personnel of the elite corps of Military Police (CMP), since all ranks of this Corps adorn the exclusive red berets along with white belts to distinguish themselves from other Corps of Army. The role of this Corps is primarily to assist Army formations in maintaining a high standard of discipline of its troops, prevent breaches of various rules and regulations and to assist in the preservation of high morale of all ranks of the formation.

The First section of Indian Corps of Military Police was raised in July 1939,With the name of Force 4 Provost unit and initially was part of the 4th Indian Infantry Division which was the first Indian Formation to be inducted in World War 2.The Provost section was raised by taking soldiers from the 7 and 11 Cavalry Regiment.The recorded date of raising the first Provost Unit is 28 August 1939 and the Unit served in campaigns of North Africa and Burma during the World War 2 and after the successful operations by this newly formed unit during these campaigns,the British Government of India formally sanctioned the formation of Corps of Indian Military Police on 7 July 1942.

Initially under the British rule, the Corps was known as 'Corps of Indian Military Police (CIMP)' and after the Freedom of India on 18 October 1947,the corps was re-designated and now is known as 'Corps of Military Police (CMP)',which is now celebrated as Corps Raising Day.