Sixty commandos of the Quick Reaction Team (QRT) of the City Police have completed their training and will be in a state of readiness round-the-clock to combat emergency situations, said C. Sylendra Babu, Commissioner of Police, Coimbatore City on Monday.
Mr. Sylendra Babu witnessed a demonstration by the QRT commandos in rescuing schoolchildren from a bus hijacked by terrorists. Also present were Deputy Commissioner of Police (Armed Reserve) S. Sengodan, Vice-Principal of Police Recruit School V. Chandrasekharan and Assistant Commissioner of Police (Intelligence) A.S. Nandakumar.
The demonstration had three methods: one by storming the bus in the control of extremists, then by intercepting the bus with a lorry and then storming and the third method was immobilising the bus and then storming into it.
The personnel also demonstrated the technique of storming a hideout and killing three extremists who were hatching a conspiracy.
The demonstration was action packed with the extremists hurling country bombs and opening fire with AK 47 and commandos retaliating.
Talking to reporters, Mr. Babu said that the commandos had completed a month-long training given by Tamil Nadu Commando School – Marudham and Special Task Force, Sathyamangalam. They have been trained in vehicle interception, building intervention, unarmed combat, snap shooting and stress situation firing. The training provided also included use of explosives, identification of explosives, defusing and detonation of explosives including Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDS).
In the unarmed combat, the commandos are undergoing training in karate as well. They will be trained till getting a black belt. Of the 60 commandos, 11 of them are women. The commandos will be in two batches. One batch will be in training while the remaining 30 commandos of the other batch will be in a state of readiness.
Training and rehearsals would be a continuous process to fine tune their skills and refresh the training. The Commissioner also gave away cash rewards to the team heads namely A. Parameshwaran, an ex-army para-commando, Inspector C. Panchatcharam and Sub-Inspector P. Kanakamani.
