The Kerala Police will soon raise a new Special Forces battalion to deny left extremists and religious fundamentalist outfits the use of the State’s remote terrains for recruitment, indoctrination and martial training.
An Additional Director General of Police will have operational control of the 626-man unit to be named the Kerala Anti-Terror Squad (KATS). It will be trained to “lurk, survive and fight for extended periods” in “inaccessible and inhospitable terrains,” including the State’s vast forests (28.9 per cent of its total land area) and its maze of lagoons and inland waterways dotted with scores of sparsely populated and uninhabited islets.
Expertise in unconventional jungle warfare based on guerrilla tactics will be the unit’s chief strength. Its primary task will be to dominate remote terrains likely to be used by armed radical elements, fugitives from law, marijuana growers, smugglers, hooch distillers and spirit hoarders. At least 30 per cent of the unit’s strength will be intelligence collection oriented. Its plainclothes squads will operate covertly and establish rapport with sections of society vulnerable to indoctrination by ultra radical elements.
The squads will report to the government on issues, social and material, that can lead to alienation and radicalisation of such people, including the urban poor, so that the State can take pre-emptive action through accurate targeting of subsidies and welfare measures. The squad members will be trained to administer primary health care and impart basic education and living skills to remote dwelling people.
At a different level, the intelligence squads will use the latest electronic intelligence gathering equipment (including camera-fitted remote control aircraft, hidden cameras and sensors, satellite communication/imagery and camouflaged observation posts) to “spot, track and engage” armed non-State actors venturing into the State’s forests. The KATS will operate in units having not less than 40 combatants, including those trained as medics, snipers and communications and signals experts.
They will use specialised firearms, including sniper rifles fitted with night vision, infra-red and laser targeting scopes, assault rifles for close quarter combat, landmine detectors, and camping equipment.
The State police will harness the expertise of instructors from the Central Reserve Police Force’s Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA), Grey Hounds, the anti-Maoist force of the Andhra Pradesh Police, and the Indian Army’s Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School, Mizoram, to train the battalion.
State Police Chief K. S. Balasubramanian and Inspector General Manoj Abraham are supervising the scheme.