Kolkata, April 05: West Bengal police have taken a keen
interest in raising a highly specialised commando force
trained in counter-insurgency, an expert in counter-terrorism
training has said.
Brigadier Basant Kumar Ponwar, director of the Counter
Terrorism and Jungle Warfare College at Kanker of North Bastar
in Chhattishgarh, said here that the WB police department is
keen to send at least 100 personnel to his college for the
specialised training.
Speaking at an interactive session on `police-public
relation in a counter-terrorism environment` organised by the
Indian Chamber of Commerce, Ponwar said he was waiting for a
formal proposal in this regard from the West Bengal police
after which the training would start.
Ponwar on superannuation from the Army was invited by the
Chhattishgarh government to open a school modeled on the
Army`s School of Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare where
he was the commandant in his last posting.
Ponwar, who is now the inspector-general of police of
Chhattisgarh, claimed that the elite school had attracted
media attention in the country and abroad.
"The school functioning from August 2005 has imparted
training to at least 3000 police personnel from Bihar,
Jharkhand, Maharastra, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand,"
Ponwar said.
With the faculty mostly drawn from the Army, Ponwar
said the college has a training schedule of six weeks.
"The entire training is done in dense forest where
the students are not only taught to handle sophisticated
weapons, but at the same time they are allowed to go through
adverse situations so that they have real life experience,"
Ponwar said.
Bureau Report
