A Force Against Terror

Starting March 2009,the recruits underwent 15 days of physical induction,followed by two,two-month-long phases of initial training and another four months of intensive physical,firing and combat training. Today,after several levels of screening,only the 211 toughest men are part of the force,now in the final stages of training at the State Reserve Police Force Group I headquarters in Pune. The first state-level police SWAT team and the first urban terrorism combat squad has been imparted the best secrets of the trade by experts from the defence force and premier squads across the country.

Force One will be deployed later this month. Another 54 of the Anti-Terrorist Squad Quick Response Team are now being trained and will be inducted at a later date.

Force One chief,Deputy Inspector General S. Jagannathan,said the curriculum was shaped out of commando training courses and modified to include a battle preparedness test,a battle assault obstacle course,the ultimate endurance test,and training in tactical firing. Special sessions on explosives were arranged in coordination with military units,with experts from various squads being consulted.

The SPRF training ground has acquired the look of a battlefield. The sand model room has been the venue of many combat briefing sessions and the firing range has been equipped with new infrastructure. There is a smoke room,infrastructure for carrying out grenade attacks,rooms for combat situations with targets placed next to hostages,and huge grounds with makeshift urban hindrances. The men in midnight-blue,who completed their final and most crucial set of examinations this month,are ready to be deployed. The group recently performed extremely well in the toughest tactical firing session they have faced till date. In the final exams,out of a total score of 1,500700 for firingall but eight recruits crossed 1,200.

They performed much better than our expectations, says Chiranjeev Prasad,commandant,Force One. I wont deny that I had apprehensions when we started training. Then,there was the swine flu scare in the city in the most crucial stages of training. Today,I am confident that our men are ready to be deployed, says DIG Jagannathan.

Commandant Prasad is now collecting the worlds best literature on SWAT teams to be included in a library for the commandos.

Earlier this month,the West Bengal IG visited the Force One grounds and police chiefs from Uttar Pradesh called in,showing interest in visiting the training grounds to see if they can follow the model to train their own forces.

The early screening was aimed at ascertaining the mental preparedness and overall endurance of the recruits. Within a week of joining the force,when they first knocked on our dorm doors at 2 a.m. and asked us to assemble,I was irritated. Now I can do without sleep and still be agile, says Sub-Inspector Prashant Pawar,37,the first to clear the bodies at Borivali station in 2006 after the serial blasts,who is now a group instructor at Force One.

For Inspector Sunil Lahigude,a stint in the police control room on the night of November 26 was the final trigger to apply. In the training course,everything is done against your wishyou want to sleep,they keep you awake; you want to get some peace,they ask you to pick up your rifle. Today,I am used to all the uncertainties of life. I guess I am finally a commando, he says.

The first stages of training included using balls as targets,with bullets provided later. It is estimated that the commandos used up over 70,000 bullets in the last three months. The men,equipped with NSGs primary weapon,the German MP5the quickestand AK-47s,snipers,and a Glock,were made to rush through smoke rooms,survive serial grenade attacks and fires and rescue hostages in combat situations. Several nights,they were just made to fire on targets in the dark. An entire curriculum was designed for hostage rescue,room intervention and door demolition.

Then they made us run with 10-kg weights on our back,carrying rifles, says Inspector Anandrao Hake,group commander and one of the senior officers at 41 years of age. Initially,it was difficult. I used to stare at my pot-belly. Hake is now a merit-holder in the finals,after losing 18 kg. Hake says his biggest inspiration is his TV-crazy son,who calls him every night asking him to fight dishum dishum. Today,all the commandos can run 30 km with 10 kg of weights and a 5-kg dummy rifle in three hours and 11 minutes.

There were other aspects to the training. We called for case diaries of all the major assassinationsfrom Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi to recent terrorist attacksand studied them to make sure we learned from the mistakes that had been made, says Deputy Superintendent of Police B.S. Kendre,a former counter-insurgency cop trained with the Grey Hounds. There was a three-day-long session,he adds,when 10 Mumbai Police recruits who were at the spot of the 26/11 attack,were made to narrate all that they had seen,with the entire class analysing the situation. Some lectures involved watching unedited footages of victims bodiesthe slides would not change till every commando had seen them.

The commandos also went through a special combat exercise in civil clothes,learning to fight in Magarpatta,a model of a township with towers,important structures,malls,theatres and foreigners created for training. On days when there was nothing much to do,we would make them sit on top of trees for over 10 hours without food. Or just make them starve with less than five hours of sleep, says Inspector Dilip Khedekar,a Force One instructor and an explosives expert trained by NSG.

The High Energy Materials Research Laboratory HEMRL and the College of Military Engineering CME trained the recruits in identifying explosives. This is the firs time the military has been involved in designing extensive training modules for a police team.

To check the level of alertness,the commandos were made to solve puzzles and mathematical problems after hours of tiresome exercises. The commandos will learn to endure hunger better on a mission based on a scheduled diet plan that is being developed,says Kendre. They will simply have to survive on dry fruits for days, he says.

Stories of commitment emerge from within the force. Vinod Chaudhari,33,who got married ten days after he was selected to be part of the force,post screening,returned to train within a couple of days. Once you fall in love with the uniform,there is no compromise, he says. More painful is the story of Pramod Kamble,from SRPF,Navi Mumbai,who was detected with six kidney stones and an appendix problem days before the final exams. He quietly went to a doctor and got pain-killers,keeping the authorities in the dark till the exams were over.

Now recuperating and preparing for an operation in Mumbai after the passing-day parade,Kamble says,It would have been stupid of me to shirk the responsibility because of a health constraint. I recall the disappointment of those who didnt make it past the screening stage. It would have been an injustice to each one of them if I had opted out. Kamble cleared the exam with excellent marks,his best during the entire training.

Instructor C.B. Paraskar,also trained by NSG,says,The only thing that keeps them going even in the hardest of tasks is that they are all here of their own will and they are highly determined. The instructors have been charting recruits performance and work on it to not only match the standards of other elite squads in the country,but also to set new benchmarks,he says.

Chief Instructor R.B. Jadhav,an ITBP trained commando,is all praise for the level of precision the boys showed in most tactical exercises. Jadhav makes special mention of their improved attack capacity and countering grenade attacks. In the 26/11 attack,he says,most of the grenades flung by the terrorists were from guarded stone structures,ensuring that a counterattack did not hurt them. He adds that while in an assault situation,Force One will be supported with the police BDDS squad.

Once deployed,the first exercise for the commandos would be to do a survey of the spots targeted in the November 26 attack and to go on night walks on various routes across sensitive targets across cities like Mumbai and other important places to ensure a repeat of the mistakes of 26/11 does not occur, Kendre says. A CRPF team led by medical trainers from Talegoan trained Force One commandos paramedically. Next on the anvil is training by the Army Medical College.

With help from experts,the instructors are now working on a refresher test that will be held every six months. Once deployed,the men will have to pass an annual test.

If they dont clear that,they will be disqualified and sent back to their parent unit, says Jagannathan.

Firing experts Additional SP retd Gani Shaikh and Col retd MG Nairalso a decorated officer from his stint with NSGare confident that the commandos are now ready for any firing or combat situation. Shaikh instructed the commandos on static and combat firing and Nair trained them on tactical firing. There are three aspectscombat firing,reflex firing and peripheral firing. Each commando is trained in every aspect, Nair says.

Though neither of them agrees to comparisons with elite army-supported squads,Shaikh says,This is a police SWAT team and we assure everyone that they match the standards of elite teams.

Each hit team of six commandoswith one explosives expert,one paramedic,the rest trained in firing and combatwill be led by a commando chosen purely on the basis of merit. So if you are the best in the team,then even if you are a constable and your team has many officers,you get to lead the team, says Jagannathan,who refers to the selection as a beautiful combination of personnel from across various arms of the police.

We have also ensured that all commandos,whether they are officers or constabulary,live in the same barracks,eat in the same mess police chefs Patil kaka and Mani serve simple,quality meals of pulses,eggs and milk and practice in the same training infrastructure. The message is clearwhen terror strikes,Force One will stand and strike as one, he says.