With the launch of women commando force, Uttarakhand has become the fourth Indian state to have a women commando force in the police department. Along with the women commando force, chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat also launched smart Cheetah police at the police line here on Wednesday.
Speaking on the occasion, the CM said that the women police commandos have been given better training. Appreciating Shaurya Bharadwaj for training the woman commandos, the CM said that the training had been provided free of cost by him. Rawat said that it is also important for school and college girls to learn the basics of self defence. The State government will make efforts to train girls in self defence in the future. Considering this, the role of the trained women commandos becomes more important, said the CM. He also spoke about the various steps taken by the state government to facilitate woman empowerment. Paying tribute to the two policemen who were among those who had lost their lives in the recent disaster in Chamoli district, Rawat said that women officers had done a commendable job in the rescue and relief efforts.
Speaking on the occasion, the director general of police, Ashok Kumar paid tribute to the two policemen who had died in the Chamoli disaster. He appreciated the work done by SDRF, stating that the SDRF team had first reached the lake formed at 14,000 feet altitude on the Rishiganga river and informed about its status. He said, “We have created the woman commando force on the directions of the CM to empower women. The women of Uttarakhand are excellent in most fields of work and have provided leadership in various major social movements. However, some anti-national elements wrongly exploit women, which makes the role of women commandos all the more important.”
The 27 women have undergone a two-week pre-commando training and are currently undergoing a commando course. They are to complete at least two months of hard training. The components of the training include unarmed combat, rock climbing, firing, bomb disposal, first aid, navigation/map reading, VIP security and counter-terrorism among other aspects. Apart from Uttarakhand, women commando force is present only in three other states- Nagaland, Kerala and West Bengal.
The DGP further said that though Cheetah police was already in operation, additional training was given to make it smarter, enhance its capabilities and skills. A total of 148 personnel including 30 women were given a month-long training for this purpose. The smart Cheetah police were training in aspects to tackle crimes against women, children and senior citizens, other crime control, patrolling, crowd control, community policing, intelligence collection, prevention of riots, search and questioning of suspects, cyber crime, CCTV monitoring, arms training and other aspects.
MLA Vinod Chamoli, women’s commission chairperson Vijaya Bhartwal, security advisor to the CM, lieutenant general (retd) JS Negi and others were also present on the occasion.