The police here have drawn up plans to raise two units of specially trained personnel following a directive from the Centre, which had recently alerted the Union Territory about possible terror attacks.
Steps are being intensified for raising the two commando units with each comprising 100 personnel drawn from India Reserve Battalion (IRB), raised some years ago as a standby unit, an official source said.
The induction of the commando units was part of the steps taken to modernise the police force and also to rise to any extraordinary exigency.
It also comes in the backdrop of the Centre’s recent alert that Puducherry, a former French colony having large number of French nationals and visited by foreign tourists, was a possible terror target. The alert came soon after terror attack in Pune last month.
In the first phase, 70 IRB personnel were trained in the Tamil Nadu Commando School in Chennai last year on various aspects of counter terrorism tactics, advanced handling of weapons and rising to any exigency.
After the Centre’s directive, the police department has sent another team of 60 IRB personnel for training including in martial arts, swimming, fire fighting and rescue, reconnaissance, bomb detection and disposal. The personnel would be trained in rock climbing and jungle warfare shortly.
Once training was completed for the 200 personnel, the Centre would sanction funds to procure modern weapons and gadgets for the commando units, the source said.
