Police trains guns on intelligence now

Mendonca said when he had joined the force some three decades ago, criminals were using rampuri knife, dagger, or gupti stiletto. With advancement in technology, the criminals now used AKs, stenguns, and grenades.

After training four batches of special operation squads, Choudhary finished training the second batch from various police stations. So far, some 225 policemen from many police stations andwings of the Mumbai police have been trained in various methods of combat. In the latest batch, over 40 officers, including two women, successfully finished the training. The training was at the police training school at Marol, while the demonstration was at the police firing range in the hills of Ghatkopar.

The trained commandos demonstrated their short range firing skills, quick successive shots, and other firing techniques, using weapons like carbine, 0.9mm pistol, AK-47, and self-loading rifles. Besides shooting, the policemen were made fearless against gun shots, which Choudhary termed as 8220;inoculation against bullet shots8221;. Another part of the training was 8220;hostage rescue situation8221; in circumstances where terrorists are holed up in a flat. The policemen were also taught unarmed combat 8212; martial arts and physical fights.