While the strength of the police forces in the country is around 14 lakh, it’s a drop in the ocean when compared to the manpower in the private security sector, which is nearly 70 lakh. The result of this imbalance is the outsourcing of security. But even with ex-cops and servicemen working in the private sector, are they trained to cope with different scenarios?
Former Union home secretary, G.K. Pillai posed this question on Sunday at Security 360, a three-day conference organised by Synergia Foundation in the city. As the country is awash with what he termed a ‘crime epidemic’ abetted by a low conviction rate for petty crimes, the crying need of the hour is to train the private security force and also citizens to respond to any eventuality.
“Citizens are increasingly the first responders during these events. What happens when a school is attacked? How do the students, faculty and teachers respond? A school being attacked is not unimaginable. David Headley [American terrorist of Pakistan origin] had video recordings of two schools. With the rise of lone wolf attacks, such situations cannot be discounted,” argued Mr. Pillai
What would a first response by a citizen entail? He narrated it through an anecdote. “When I was home secretary, I insisted on going on my morning walks, but without security. A senior security person advised me to walk clutching pebbles in both my fists. He explained that if someone came to attack me, I could throw the pebbles on their face. That small window you gain by disorienting the attacker is important, he told me. This is first response,” he said. “What should citizens do in the eventuality of an attack? We need to train them to clutch pebbles,” he said, metaphorically.
Incidentally, concerns about lone wolf attacks and local terror attacks had dominated the conference on Saturday, with former national security advisor, M.K. Narayanan and former secretary, Homeland Security of USA Michael Chertoff, who termed it ‘direct-to-home jihad’ and ‘crowd sourced terror’ respectively.
