The Asian Age

By Asit Jolly

Chandigarh

Jan. 5: The Punjab police is now seeking to better its anti-terrorist skills by re-training its commandos in advanced martial arts and equipping them with state-of-the-art weaponry.

Police commandos on chief minister Parkash Singh Badal’s 1,000-man security detail in Chandigarh, as well as others at the Punjab Armed Police academy at Jalandhar, were recently given live demonstrations of Krav Maga, a Czechoslovakian-Israeli unarmed combat technique employed by special forces across the world.

Staged by experts from the International Krav Maga Federation (India), the demonstrations were a precursor to identifying physically and emotionally suited personnel to undertake advanced courses supervised by Israeli instructors.

“The idea is to arm our men with specialised skills that could prove far more efficient than pistols and AK-47s in the protection of VIPs,” said a senior police officer. He admitted that many Punjab police commandos constituted more of a threat than any security to the people they are supposed to protect. “There is always the possibility that motivated intruders could snatch a PSO’s weapon and use it on the protectee in crowds or other close-protection situations,” the officer said.

Mr Vicky Kapoor, who runs IKMF-India, insists “unarmed combat skills are the only solution on the street”. “Yes, a good weapon is important but even more critical is the man behind that weapon,” he said.

“As soon as we have a formal request, IKMF will commence an advanced Krav Maga course for a hand-picked group of Punjab police commandos,” Mr Kapoor said.

The police department has also initiated the process to acquire state-of-the-art weapons from a leading European vendor. Though still a very closely guarded secret, sources tell this newspaper the CM’s security detail could soon be brandishing new machine pistols and sniper rifles.