State raising its own super commandos

“ These men are good and are picking up very quickly; I have trained men in USA,Columbia and East European countries but they (the Punjab commandos) are better,as those men were handed to us for training after at least six months of (preliminary) training by their respective forces. Also,their screening was a tedious process as only a few could make it through for the training. But so far as these men from Punjab Police are concerned,they were handed to us raw with hardly any training and out of 120 men 40 were selected,” said the chief Israeli instructor.

“They were in good health but not physically fit when they came to us,but now,after five weeks of training,they are a thousand times better. Some of them are good at sniper shooting,others in urban combat – getting into buildings and taking on the enemy by surprise – while others at planning support. For now,we are training every one for everything,but at a later stage the men who are good in a particular combat will be trained in that field only so that the SWAT team has the best of everything for any eventuality,” said the chief trainer. The training stretches over 14 weeks.

“Now we run 3 kilometres in 11 minutes but before coming here we ran the same distance in more than 15 minutes. The running distance has been increasing over the weeks and it is likely to touch 40 km by the end of the training,” said Inspector Dalbir Singh,who heads the 40-member squad of trainees.

Clad in black combat uniform like the National Security Guard commandos,these men wear helmets and carry AK-47 guns. All their protective gear has ‘SWAT’ written over it. They are not addressed by name but number.

One of the instructors said,“The boys are doing well despite the problems in logistics; they are keen to learn and keep on asking the practical possibilities of the particular combat they do not understand,which was not the case with the US Marines and Navy Seals in the US or the Italian Police.”

Most of the 40 trainees are from the Seventh IRB Battalion. Ninety per cent of them have completed graduation and have served in the force for at least four years. “We have never trained this hard. But at the same time these instructors make us do exercises that make our bodies relax within minutes despite the hard schedule. We have been mentally strengthened so much that if our bullets run out,we will still go and fight the enemy with our bare hands,” said a trainee. “We were scared to jump into fire or fight,now in this training such tactics have been taught to us,” said another trainee Anand Kumar.

Vikram Kapoor,coordinator for the training,has himself trained with Israeli forces in Hungary. “It is all about coordination,team work,reflexes,IQ level and physical fitness. Also,a special diet is given to the boys as they need the calories. Their daily performance is monitored and they are accordingly given marks. The men who need improvement are guided. As they are divided into teams,they compete to outperform each other.”